


Loving You Is Easy, And That's Why I'm Afraid

by shadowfaerieammy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Childhood Sweethearts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 12:36:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 38,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21410305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowfaerieammy/pseuds/shadowfaerieammy
Summary: Will didn’t think any college hockey team would want him with his disability, let alone offer him a hockey scholarship, but that’s exactly what Samwell University did. He would do almost anything to play college hockey. Even join a team with his childhood sweetheart.If Derek wanted to pretend they didn’t know each other? Fine, Will could pretend. And if Derek wanted to fall back in love? Well, maybe Will could do that, too.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 41
Kudos: 190
Collections: OMGCP Big Bang 2019





	1. History: Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey yall! This is my submission for the OMGCP Big Bang 2019 and I'm delighted to finally share it with you!
> 
> Check out this beautiful moodboard made by ohshitty on tumblr! They were a delight to work with and I'm thankful for the beautiful piece of art they made!  
https://ohshitty.tumblr.com/post/189019067258/loving-you-is-easy-and-thats-why-im-afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William Poindexter goes on a college tour.

Will needed two things from a college: a scholarship and a reasonable drive home. He’d applied to several places, from bustling big city institutions to rural schools barely big enough to support a hockey team. Some of them offered scholarships. Only two offered full ride, one academic, one hybrid academic and athletic.

It surprised Will that any school would offer him a scholarship for hockey, let alone a full scholarship, even if it was partly academic.

A grades and hockey stats are easily overshadowed by a history of behavioral problems and a physical disability.

But Samwell wanted him anyway, so he starred it on his list, designating it his first choice. As long as the hockey tour went well, he’d be attending Samwell come fall.

With his luck, he should have known that there would be a catch.

When the school tour rolled around, Will drove his beat up old truck from Maine to Massachusetts, allotting extra time in case his hands needed a break. His truck, as old as him and inherited from his father, worked more reliably than his hands did. If he left at first light, surely he’d make it on-time. He cut it close, but leaving the night before and staying at a hotel was an unnecessary expense easily avoided.

After parking, Will ran to make it to the ice rink before the strike of noon. Wheezing, face flushed from the scratch of the cool Spring breeze, he only had a moment to wrangle his hair back into tidiness before entering.

Standing directly inside was a short person with styled black hair, a cool demeanor, and a clipboard.

“Name?”

“William Poindexter,” he replied in a quiet voice, aware of the areas potential for echo.

They crossed off his name on the check-in sheet then looked up at him with a subdued but welcoming smile. “I’m Lardo, manager of the Samwell hockey team. Take a seat and we’ll start the tour in a minute.”

A handful of other prospective students sat on the bleachers nearby, some chatting, some minding their own business. Will decided to join the latter group, finding a seat in a desolate area and pulling a fidget cube from his pocket. With fewer hours sleep than desirable and a grumbling stomach, socializing wasn’t high on his list of priorities. A few relaxing minutes with his fidget cube would tone down his anxiety and bring some life back into his hands.

A shadow passed over him. “What’s that?”

Will looked up to meet eyes with someone wearing a blinding amount of teal, the signature color of the San Jose sharks.

“It’s a fidget cube.”

The other person, presumably a prospective student, sat next to him and leaned in to look closer. “Kinda like a rubix cube?”

Will handed over the cube for the other boy to fidget with. “Kind of. A rubix cube has a puzzle to solve, and a fidget cube doesn’t. It’s just something to keep your hands busy.”

Lardo called them to attention, giving Will an excuse to cut the conversation short and steal back his cube. They stood at the foot of the bleachers, to Will’s right, so he swiveled his head to watch their speech. They finished their announcements and started the tour of the ice rink without putting them through any awkward and painful icebreakers.

Throughout the tour, Will did his best to stay in the back, unseen. Ideally, he would make it through the entirety of the tour talking to as few people as possible and giving his social anxiety less fuel. Realistically, anything short of a panic attack would be good enough.

There were quite a few people on the tour and Will mostly kept his head down, aside from surveying the rink itself, so he didn’t pay attention to the other prospective students. The only faces he’d looked at so far were the boy in teal and Lardo. He wouldn’t even be able to tell you who stood directly next to him.

Until he could.

Until Lardo had the group huddled into the locker room and Will looked up to check out the room.

Until, while surveying the locker room, Will met eyes with the heartbreaker he thought he’d never see again.

D looked older, the expected result of puberty and four years distance. More muscle, broadened shoulders, subtle five o’clock shadow. Judging from the hat, he probably still hadn’t learned to manage his unruly curls.

All Will wanted was to avoid a panic attack. 

Last to enter the room, he easily slipped out. They’d passed a nice quiet side hall on their way over and Will ducked into it, venturing far enough back so that he couldn’t be heard when the others passed by again.

Once he could breathe again and the hall faded back into focus, Will took a moment to calmly think this over. The person probably just looked like D. Will hadn’t seen him in so long, he couldn’t really know what D looked like now, only guess. His anxiety most likely took him for a ride.

Reintegrating into the group was easier than he thought it would be, given his ostentatious red hair. He expected to be called out immediately, but nobody took notice of him. Will liked that, being able to disappear. With his red hair and disability, Will often fell victim to scrutiny.

He tried to take glances at the uncomfortably familiar student, but he stood at the front, too far for Will to get a decent look.

It wasn’t until the end of the rink tour, when they dispersed at the end of the rink to listen to Lardo make another short speech, that Will got a close look. Because he was standing Right. Next. To. Him.

D was beautiful, but he wasn’t very characteristic. He didn’t have absurdly large ears. Or freckles spattered across his face. Or garishly red hair. D was smooth, even skin, aside from the classic preteen acne blemishes. Dark curly hair easily hidden and turned indistinguishable by a hat. These things could have been easily changed by time.

The grey eyes glancing over at Will, widened slightly with what must have been shock, were unmistakable.

Just like Will’s golden eyes were unmistakable.

Will couldn’t run now. Lardo was speaking and D was looking right at him, watching. Staring. He couldn’t escape unnoticed like last time.

As the anxiety set in, freezing him in place, a shout came from the bleachers walkway.

“Good morning, my lovely little tadpoles!”

Will gratefully took the distraction and turned to face the mustachioed man and the small blonde walking down with him.

“First off, sorry for being late! ‘Specially when we got so much stuff packed in for the rest of the day! My name is Eric Bittle, official samwell hockey hospitality representative and unofficial Samwell tour guide. And I brought y’all goodie bags.”

While Eric explained the contents of the goodie bags, Will stole a glance at D. His expression was schooled into one of perfect calm, a small smirk gracing his lips.

Either D didn’t recognize him, which was unlikely given Will’s hair/ears/freckles/eyes combination unique to his family (specifically him, his sister, one uncle, and two cousins), or, more likely, he ignored him.

If that’s what their years together burned down to, then fine. Will could be petty, too. The irritation and anger bubbled up, pushing the anxiety down. That’s something he learned in high school; anger was better received than anxiety. Anxiety made him a target, but anger made him a wall. People stopped messing with him when he started trading one for the other.

Anxiety was for him alone, tucked into dark hallways or hidden under his grandma’s quilt.

Will passed D to get a goody bag from the mustachioed man’s box, thinking it’d be a good way to distance them.

“Nursey! Representing Andover on that Taddy tour! What up bro?”

The stomp of feet sounded, growing closer. Will forced his gaze to stay on the box and not wander up to who he knew approached.

“Hey! Shitty!” Shitty? “Knew I’d run into you eventually. Man, Samwell’s pretty sick.”

His voice sounded so different, but it was no surprise. Puberty did that to people.

“But yo, man! Your other manager is mad hyper.”

Shitty, the man with the mustache if D was right, chipped in, mouth half-full of pie. “Who, Bitty? Brah, Bitty’s not a team manager; he’s on the team.”

“That guy?” Will asked, words slipping from my lips. Any chance of staying on the down-low disappeared. “Wow. I thought since Jack Zimmerman played here, guys would be…” He almost said bigger, more physically adept for hockey. But if they wanted him with his disability, who’s to say a small player couldn’t play as well as someone larger. But at his size, he must work at least twice as hard to keep up, right? Like Will did? That’s what Will meant when his next words spilled out. “Less good at baking, if you know what I mean.”

If he worked hard for his place on the team, when did he have time to bake?

Judging from the awkward looks sent to him from the people nearby, he must have messed up. He never managed to say what he meant to express.

Samwell didn’t leave the best impression. The facilities were great, and they had Jack Zimmerman of all people on their team, and the sports scholarship guaranteed him a spot on the team. But it seemed like the people there may have already made up their minds on the kind of person he was, and they didn’t seem to like him much. Except for Christopher Chow, goalie and avid fan of The San Jose Sharks. He liked everyone.

And D. Was he willing to risk ending up at the same school, on the same team, as his childhood sweetheart? Was it worth seeing him every day and feeling the pang of betrayal in his chest? Would he spend the next four years of his life pretending this boy hadn’t broken his heart a million times over just to secure a spot on a hockey team?

The other school’s team didn’t want him, he already knew.

The opportunity to play hockey was worth millions of heartbreaks.


	2. History: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will needs hockey. How much is he willing to take in order to keep it in his life?

Will regretted his decision as soon as he submitted his scholarship acceptance and enrollment. If D had made the same decision, Will would suffer four years of torture at his hands.

But he needed hockey. Even the right choice could lead to regret. Sometimes, especially the right choice. And he knew this was the right choice for him.

Will got special permission to move into his dorm extra early, even earlier than the early move-in for athletes, in order to meet up with the coaches and find a place to schedule his physical therapy. One condition of his scholarship was that he would attend physical therapy on a weekly basis, and he needed the coach’s help to schedule it around their hockey schedule. He would put in extra hours on the ice. To keep him on the team, he was willing to do anything.

Including share a team with one Derek Malik Nurse. The team called him Nursey, his hockey nickname, but Will referred to him as just his last name. It was more formal that way. More distant. Though it’s hard to stay distant when you’re defense partners.

Dex, as the team deemed him, tried his best to avoid Nurse, if only to hide from whatever reaction he may have. Dex didn’t want to know what Nurse thought of his presence.

It surprised him when Nurse met him with the same “chill” exterior he met everyone else with.

Willie meant nothing to him, not now that he had shed his old nickname and traded it for something shiny and new.

Instead of making him sad, this made Dex angry. Furious, even. Whenever the two spoke, no matter how simple the exchange, it turned into an argument. A match, to see who would crack first. Nurse’s armor was a carefully fabricated chill that irritated Dex to no end, and Dex’s armor was a flaming rage that matched his fiery aesthetic.

Fire and ice.

“You burn bright, but not hot,” D had said to him once, sitting on the floor of D’s room with a game of cards spread between them. “Like a candle.”

Willie sat on the other side of the forgotten cards. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket, stolen from a drunken uncle at the last family barbecue. He held the lighter in one hand and used the other to cup the flame. “Or a lighter.”

Will used to think about that a lot. If D thought of Willie as a harmless candle, then Will would be a forest fire. Big and blinding and hot.

Dex could be the same.

He didn’t want to live like this, in a constant state of spite, but Nurse wanted this.

It didn’t surprise Dex that they still clicked on the ice. The years they spent playing together were burned into his muscle memory.

Then one day during practice a twinge of pain shot through his wrist, catching him off guard. Sudden rushes of pain were few and far between, and never on the ice. He dropped his stick. Nurse tripped.

“What the hell is your problem, Poindexter?” Nurse shouted in his face, beautiful and sweaty and pissed off.

Two can play at that game, Dex thought.

“What does it look like, Nurse? I dropped my stick.”

Nurse’s features distorted into a scowl. “Nobody just drops their stick in the middle of skating. You did it on purpose to trip me.”

That’s when Dex realized that Nurse didn’t know.

“Sorry,” Dex mumbled half-heartedly as he shouldered past and left the ice. Practice was basically over so nobody stopped him.

Dex went through the motions of the locker room on auto-pilot, hand aching. He’d have to talk to his doctors and the coaches about this, but it was probably nothing. He was too distracted by something else to care.

Nurse didn’t know about his hands. The coaches hadn’t told the team aside from Captain Jack Zimmerman, so none of his teammates knew, but D was there when it all began. The aching wrists and stiff fingers, Willie had groaned about it all to D when it first started back in eighth grade. It was D who told him to go see a doctor, not that Willie listened until long after D left. Dex had assumed Nurse would have realized.

Apparently he didn’t pay attention enough to notice and didn’t care enough to think about it.

Lost in thought, Dex didn’t notice everyone file in.

“Poindexter, a word.”

Dex grabbed his stuff and followed the coaches to their office.

“What was that on the ice?”

“My hand freaked out. It hardly ever happens, though! This is the first time it’s ever happened on the ice!” Dex rushed to speak trying to force words into the silence fast enough to put the thought of benching him out of their minds. “I’ll bring it up in PT, talk to the doctors about it. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“From what we saw on the ice today, it can be a problem. Should we tell Nurse? He may need to cover for you if this happens again during a game.”

The last thing Dex wanted was for Nurse to know; he’d either throw Dex a pity party or chirp him cruelly, maybe both in one. “No, coaches, I can handle it. Like I said, it won’t happen again.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

The stubborn fire in Dex burned hotter.

“I can. It won’t happen again.”

He would rather burn to ash in his own flames than drown in the presence of Derek Nurse.


	3. History: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making excuses.

When Bitty approached Dex one day to ask about his feud with Nurse, he lied. He spewed excuses and the nonsense he and Nurse argue emptily about. Nurse was privileged because his family had money and Dex’s didn’t. Nurse went to a fancy prep school and Dex went to public school. All of that was hot air, of course. Dex never disliked Nurse for his family’s money; he hated Nurse for using it as an excuse to leave. He didn’t hate Nurse for going to private school; he hated him for leaving Will to survive public school in Maine alone.

But Bitty didn’t need to know that. So, Dex made up excuses, the same type he expected Nurse to make if Bitty went to him as well.

Fighting with Nurse was easier than he thought it would be. Some small, preteen part of him craved Nurse’s attention, even if it came at a painful cost.

The arguments wore him down. They took so much energy, more than they were worth, but Dex couldn’t give them up.

The soft moments hurt more, sandpaper on an open wound. Rare moments came in which both boys forgot who they were in the past. They would celly and chirp and dance together in the locker room, for a few short moments, before their history returned to them and they locked themselves away again.

Dex tried to be a pyre, but sometimes he let his guard down and softened into a campfire. Nurse brought out the worst in him.

Poor Chowder was often caught in the crossfire. Dex felt bad for him; he didn’t know what it was he got in the middle of. He must have thought they were petty strangers that grew into a relationship of hate, not a relationship of love that dwindled into hateful strangers.

That’s what they were now: strangers. Nurse may have the same eyes, but they held none of the expression they used to. D was a fountain of emotions; Nurse was an ice sculpture carefully crafted for maximum chill.

Dex hated it.

A small part of him wished to whittle down the ice and look past the walls.

Dex hated that, too.


	4. Rewriting The Story: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the story really starts. Time skip to the dib flip Dex's Sophomore year.

They managed the majority of two years like that, spewing hate at one another, shattered shards of heart splintering further. As much as they fought on the ice, on buses and in locker rooms, Dex had his dorm room to go back to. Sure, he shared it with a roommate, but pretty much anyone was better than Derek Nurse. Even if he moved into the Haus like he hoped to, it was unlikely Ransom and Holster were crazy enough to present their dual Dibs to the dysfunctional pair. He banked on getting Lardo’s Dibs since he did so much work on the Haus. He spent hours fixing the oven, the heating system, even loose floorboards. That must have been enough, right?

Wrong.

Dex and Nurse overheard Ollie and Wicky mention their Dibs from Ransom and Holster, and this information shot Nurse up the stairs and into Lardo’s room. Dex, helpless, followed to fight for the Dibs he felt he deserved He wouldn’t let Nurse, who could more than afford any housing option he desired, take the affordable housing that Dex earned through hard work.

Like everything else with Nurse, it was a fight. Dex thought he could win this one, though. His hard work should have earned him this place.

He was going to lose.

It was a small miracle that Bitty proposed a dibs flip. At least with that, his chance of winning increased to fifty percent.

Dex shook Nurse’s hand with more reluctance than he’d ever done anything, and he lived in a sport’s frat so that meant something.

Everyone watched intently as the coin spun in the air in an arc then plummeted down to the ground.

“This can’t be happening,” Dex muttered to himself as the coin landed straight up in a crack between floorboards.

“Solomon himself could not have thought up a solution more wise. Looks like y’all are sharing this room!”

Bitty sounded content with this outcome. Happy. Dex couldn’t understand why.

“Re-flip!” he begged from his place on the floor, arm reaching out to Lardo in mercy. “Check the lease! Have Shitty re-interpret the bylaws-” Dex cut off, the words choked. He could hardly breathe. The only thing keeping him going was the possibility that maybe somehow he could change the outcome. “I can’t,” he emphasized, hoping it would make a difference.

It didn’t.

“No re-flips. Seriously? Who’s ever heard of a re-dib flip?”

In an act of cruelty, Nurse knelt beside him and rested a hand on his back. “Come on, Poindexter. It’s a pretty big room. And rent’s even lower this way.”

Dex flinched at the touch, the familiarity of it. Everything Nurse said felt like a jab. A jab at the closet of a bedroom they spent countless hours in growing up, playing cards and building blanket nests. A jab at his family’s lack of money and the scholarship he worked his ass off for. Nurse wanted to undermine him.

In a last ditch bout of hysteria, he threw out the last flimsy idea he had. “Is- this is a test? To see who really wants dibs, right? Who respects the Haus most? Right?” The desperation in his voice grew with each word, full-blown panic apparent in the way his last word nearly entered the realm of a shriek.

Nurse, no longer touching him but still painfully close, couldn’t leave him alone for two minutes. “Poindexter! Face it, you’re gonna move out by August. September, tops.”

Dex barely heard his last words as the hysteria made way for a panic attack. He’d been so distracted by trying to fix the situation that he hadn’t paid attention to the panic attack creeping up on him.

There was nowhere to go. He had to ride it out right there in front of everyone on Lardo’s floor.

Lardo threatened them all to leave, but he didn’t hear. Couldn’t. Thankfully, he already sat on the floor. No crashing into miscellaneous objects while trying to slink to the ground.

He rode it out, and when his sense returned to him, he found Lardo crouched in front of him.

“You hear me?”

Dex nodded, not ready yet to use his voice.

“Panic attack?”

Another nod. How embarrassing to be reduced to a puddle in front of the team manager. If he begged, maybe she wouldn’t tell the captains or the coaches.

But he didn’t have the energy left to protect himself, so he continued to sit there quietly on the floor while Lardo watched him.

Her voice and expression were kind but firm. “Whatever’s going on between you and Nursey’s gotta stop if you’re going to live together.”

Dex’s frame quaked. Had he been shaking this whole time? “I can’t live with him, Lardo. I can’t.”

“Whatever petty feud you have going between you two can’t be worth this, Dex.”

It isn’t worth it, Dex knew, but it’s the only option Nurse gave him.

“He abandoned me.” His voice was small, reminiscent of the gentle candle flame of a boy he was in the past. Curled into himself on the floor like this he felt so small. “We knew each other, before.”

Dex was a fool to tell Lardo. She was their team manager, but more importantly, she was Nurse’s friend.

She moved from a crouch to sitting cross-legged on the floor, settling in to listen intently. An offer.

Dex felt too tired and lonely not to take it.

“We grew up together in Maine. He lies about growing up in New York. I guess he doesn’t want people to connect the dots.”

“He never told me and I never would have guessed. What about Andover?”

Dex shook his head. “I don’t know. All I know is he left at the end of eighth grade to attend some boarding school for entitled rich kids. I didn’t ask the name and he didn’t tell me.”

“But you could have stayed friends. What happened?”

“We weren’t friends. We…” Dex trailed off, unsure of how to make his confession. He couldn’t just say it; he needed a way to make her understand. “He was a poet, even then. He told me the universe made us for each other. That life without me would be like a lantern without a flame.”

The exact moment Lardo understood could be tracked by the wideness of her eyes, how her shoulders tensed, the way her lips fell into a gentle “oh. So you were…”

She didn’t need to say it for him to know what she would say.

“Yeah. We knew each other forever and it just kind of happened. I know we were just kids, but I really thought we were endgame.” Dex scoffed, fidgeting with his hands. He couldn’t feel his fingertips yet. “It was stupid of me to believe him. Why would someone like Derek Malik Nurse want to be with some poor redheaded disabled kid?”

“You’re not some poor redheaded disabled kid, Dex. Nobody thinks of you that way.”

“I do. Stupid Willie, who can’t hold a stick right. Who can’t afford gear so he gets hand-me-downs from the older kids. Stupid Willie, who plays like shit unless his boyfriend is there to pick up the slack. Stupid Willie, who believes D when he calls him a candle.” He knew the tears were forming, felt the pressure of them building, but he was on a roll. “He believed him every time D called him that, up until he blew him out. That’s the problem with candles, Lardo; they’re easy to snuff.”

“How did he leave?” she asked, as if that would answer everything.

“Without me,” he said, as if it were enough.


	5. Rewriting The Story: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dex is dynamite. Nurse is a lit match.

Lardo didn’t push it anymore. And, since the captains and coaches didn’t bring it up, she must not have mentioned the panic attack to anyone. Dex was thankful; the last thing he needed was another thing stacked against him in hockey. If they knew, they’d make him go to therapy he didn’t have time for, or they’d lock him in a room with Nurse so they could talk out their problems.

Dex doubted that method would work with them and he wasn’t ready to test that theory.

So the captains and coaches didn’t bother him about Nurse. Bitty asked how Dex was doing more often than normal for any other person but it was typical for him. Ollie and Wicks asked him for some advice on how to fix up the attic but otherwise their interactions were limited mostly to team activities.

It was Chowder who made a big fuss about everything.

The boys had another fight. A bad one. Dex had a long day of practice and class and physical therapy. He was exhausted and his hands cramped enough for him to know he’d need to get up early to finish homework because there was no way he could do it tonight. He just wanted to grab some food then head to his room.

Cheeseburger. Chips. Salad. Gatorade. Not the best meal, but solid. He dropped off his plates at an empty table then went back for the drink. He filled the cheap plastic cup with watered down Gatorade from the drink machine then turned to head back to his table.

On his way back, he spotted Chowder and Nurse at a table. Chowder faced away from Dex, waving his hands wildly as he told Nurse a story.

Nurse and Dex locked eyes.

Nurse smirked and was the first to look away.

Chowder was great, but Dex was too tired to deal with Nurse’s bullshit, so he returned to his seat and ate alone.

The three ran into each other at the exit.

“Hey Dex!” exclaimed Chowder, energetic as ever. “I didn’t see you in there. We should’ve had dinner together!”

Dex’s eyes flicked to Nurse then back to Chowder. He really did like Chowder, he was Dex’s best friend probably if he was honest, but any time with Nurse was too much.

“Sorry, Chowder. Maybe some other time,” he said, not meaning a word of it.

Nurse crossed his arms over his chest and plastered on that nasty fake smirk he seemed to always wear around Dex. “You too good to sit with us, Poindexter?”

And that was the final straw for one William J. Poindexter.

“You know what, Nurse?” Dex took a step forward, crowding into Nurse’s space. They were about the same height but they both knew Dex would kick his ass if he tried. This close, Dex could smell Nurse’s nasty cologne. He felt sick. “Maybe I am too good for you. You treat people like shit then act like it’s their fault. Well, fuck you.”

Nurse’s eyes widened, his ice mask cracking as he took a step back. Away. Always away. “Dex, what-”

Dex took another step forward and shoved a finger into Nurse’s chest. It burned where he touched him despite the cloth parting their flesh. “You don’t get to call me that, Nurse!” He spit the name, filth on his tongue. “You shouldn’t get to call me anything. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me off the ice because I am done with your bullshit.”

He took a step back, needing to leave. Despite his heated outburst and their proximity, a chill fell over him. A panic attack approached.

He took another step back, then another, then he turned to run.

Nobody chased him.

_X_

Kevin, his roommate, was gone, leaving their dorm room empty. Perfect. He hadn’t had a panic attack in front of Kevin yet and he hoped it would never happen.

It was a blessing that he made it to his room at all. He was lucky to live at the dorm closest to the dining hall.

The fade out came when he was safely tucked into his bed.

He couldn’t hear the door open then close again or hear someone calling his name, asking him questions.

Dex nearly screamed when his senses returned to him and Christopher Chow was crouched beside his bed.

“Sorry I scared you, Dex!” Chowder all but shouted.

Dex scrambled into a sitting position and Chow moved to sit with him on the bed.

“How’d you know the door would be unlocked?” Dex hadn’t locked the door upon his arrival, but there was no way for Chowder to know that until he got there.

“I didn’t. I expected you to answer when I knocked, and maybe let me in if I was lucky. When you didn’t answer, I tried the door and let myself in.”

Dex nodded, unprepared to say or ask anything else. Post-panic attack was not his most articulate mode.

“You two need to settle your differences. But right now doesn’t seem like a good time to talk about it, so how about we head back to my room and watch Vine compilations on YouTube. We can order bubble tea from that one place off campus that delivers and has a hundred flavors. My treat.”

Dex chuckled, knowing full well the bubble tea place didn’t have that many flavors. They did have a decent variety, though, and they mixed flavors if he asked nicely. He wished they’d add Peachy Lychee to the menu already. “Okay, Chowder. Sounds good.”

They headed back to the Haus, bustling with hockey players. None of them gave Dex odd looks or asked about the scene he caused in the dining hall, which surprised him since news of it had likely already spread across campus. He mused that Chow had a hand in their silence.

Once in Chowder’s room, Chowder placed their order online and set up YouTube on his laptop. They continued to watch videos, bursting at the seams with laughter, until Chowder’s phone dinged and he got up to go get their drinks.

“Be right back!” he cheered, closing the door behind him with a smile.

This was nice. After the hellish day he had, Dex needed some relaxed bro time. No responsibilities. No expectations. And most importantly, no Derek Nurse.

“Hey Chow, I think they messed up the order,” shouted a voice through the door as the doorknob jiggled.

Dex looked up, startled; that voice caused a visceral reaction in him.

The door swung open to Derek Nurse holding a cardboard cup holder with two drinks. “You always order fruit tea but they gave us two milk teas,” he said, not yet looking up. He shut the door behind him. “Should we call them or something?”

When he finally saw Dex sitting there on Chowder’s bed, he froze, mirroring Dex’s expression of shock. His face quickly shuttered, though, any genuine emotion lost to his mask of chill. “I assume the other milk tea is yours, then.” He crossed the room to offer Dex the clear cup filled with pinkish liquid, obviously his Peachy Lychee.

Dex took it, too stunned to do anything else. Already emotionally drained from the day, there was too little of himself left for this.

He couldn’t believe Chowder would do this to him. Chowder watched him have a panic attack; how could he think this was okay?

Apparently Nurse shared the sentiment.

Nurse put his drink down on Chowder’s desk and walked over to the door. “How could Chow do this?” He tried to open the door, but the knob merely jingled. Locked.

“Everyone thinks we’re having some petty feud,” Dex mumbled, the cool drink in his hands grounding him even as he felt the rumble of anxiety roll in. “He probably didn’t-”

“He knows,” Nurse said harshly, cutting him off. He crossed the room to the bathroom door, and it opened, but the adjoining door to Lardo’s room was locked. No escape. Despite nothing of note to look at, Nurse stared out the window, avoiding looking at Dex. “I told him. He knows everything, and he still did this.”

“Oh, so he knows how you abandoned me?” Dex asked cruelly, setting his cup down beside him on the desk a little too hard. He was too distracted by his rising levels of rage to wonder if the cup cracked.

Nurse’s head shot up. The facade cracked again, feelings revealing themselves on Nurse’s face. His face tightened, his lips pursed, and his eyes seemed to fill with hurt.

Dex didn’t want to see it.

“I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” Dex asked, voice raised. Anyone passing by could hear them, maybe even the entire house could hear them, but he didn’t care. He stood and took a few steps forward, stopping in front of Nurse. “What didn’t you do?”

Nurse must have tried to shutter his expression again, but it failed, and the hurt remained. And something else, tiredness, maybe regret. Dex didn’t want to think about it too much in fear of what he might find.

“It doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You don’t want me to talk to you. You don’t even want me to look at you unless we’re on the ice.”

This only riled Dex up more. His hands, hanging uselessly at his sides, ached with pain and the urge to touch Nurse. To punch him, jab him, other things he didn’t want to consider. “Of course it matters what you say! Because, unlike you, I don’t brush off our time together as nothing!” At this point, he was screaming, loud enough for anyone in the house to hear, maybe even people outside. But it didn’t matter anymore. Who cared who knew?

Nurse seemed stunned with nothing to say. Dex had hoped this would rile him up, turn this ice sculpture boiling. He’d expected Nurse to have an outburst of his own. Anything, any sort of admission, would have been enough for him. But instead, Nurse met him with silence.

“How about this?” Dex asked as he stepped backwards out of Nurse’s space, wanting to get at least some answers. If he wouldn’t answer the big ones, then maybe he could answer something else. It may not have been the question Dex needed answered, because when it came to Nurse he would always feel incomplete without answers, but he could make a simple question be enough in this moment. “Why did you want Lardo’s dibs so bad? You can afford to live anywhere on or off campus. Why here?”

Nurse took a step back as well, creating distance between them. “I want to be close to the team. Unlike you, I love spending time with the team.”

“I spend plenty of time with the team!”

“No, you spend plenty of time with Bitty. No matter how many pies you bake with him or how many times you fix up the kitchen, he still has Jack and he’ll never want to be with you.”

“You’re right, Nurse!” Nurse startled at this, shoulders tensing, but he didn’t back down. Dex kept yelling. “Who in their right mind would want stupid, ugly, broken William J Poindexter?!”

Distracted by their argument, Dex lost track of his anxiety’s path, and it crept up on him. In all the anger, he lost sight of his anxiety. It hit him hard, taking the world out of focus and making everything fuzzy in a harsh blow. His legs buckled beneath him as he shook, crumpling to the floor.

“Fuck,” he grumbled, quaking. Of all the people this could happen in front of, it had to be Nurse. “Fuck. Fuck! Fuck.”

“What the…” he heard Nurse say as he stood, watching. He turned on his heel and slammed on the door. “Chowder! Get in here! Something’s wrong with Dex!”

Dex rode it out. It’s all he could do: sit there on the floor, shaking, probably crying, maybe even whimpering. Pitiful. Defenseless. Vulnerable.

Nurse still stood before him, though now a phone was pressed to his ear. Dex couldn’t focus enough to listen.

He tried to shift the way he sat so his legs could wake up, but he only managed to tilt himself uncomfortably sideways on the floor.

“I think he’s back, Chow, I gotta go. Hurry up.” Nurse bent down and reached out both hands.

Dex flinched.

Nurse frowned but didn’t pull his hands away. “I’m gonna help you sit up, whether you want me to or not.” He did as he said he would, helping Dex back into a seated position. “Since when do you have panic attacks?”

“Care to guess?” Dex sassed sarcastically, throat scratchy. He needed his drink but his hands were an odd combination of numb and achy. He’d have to suffer for now. “I never had to panic with you around. Now I always have to panic with you around.”

He caught the heartbreak in Nurse’s eyes before he turned away. Dex was glad Nurse turned away because he wasn’t sure he could’ve. He didn’t want to see Nurse’s pain, didn’t want to acknowledge it. But a part of him needed to know if, under the ice of Nurse’s chill, he was as affected by all this as Dex was. Dex needed to know, because if that was the case then at least their time together meant something. At least he meant something.

Nurse walked around Dex and grabbed the lychee peachy from the desk, then returned with it. He held it out for Dex to take, but he couldn’t. He knew that his numb, shaking hands wouldn’t be able to grasp and hold up the drink.

After a few seconds, when Dex didn’t take the drink, Nurse inched it forward. “Take the drink, Poindexter.”

“I can’t,” Dex mumbled, staring at the cup. Condensation beaded on the sides and dripped onto Nurse’s fingers.

“Just take it,” Nurse repeated, voice growing insistent. Mean.

Dex wanted to slink backwards, cower against the frame of Chowder’s bed, but his legs remained numb. “I can’t move,” he whispered, his voice quiet. Each movement of his vocal cords grated his throat.

For a moment, Nurse stood there in silence. Then, to Dex’s surprise, he kneeled in front of him and held the drink in front of his face, close enough for Dex to lean forward and capture the straw with his lips.

A kindness.

Something he would never expect to receive from Derek Malik Nurse.

Something he didn’t want from him.

Dex turned away.

“You need to drink,” Nurse told him.

I don’t need to do anything you tell me to, Dex thought indignantly, still facing the corner.

“Just take my help.” His voice was softer then, just enough for Dex’s heart to hurt.

Dex looked him in the eyes when he said “I’d rather die.”

Because he wanted Derek Nurse to hurt, too.

Or at least that’s what he thought he wanted, until he saw Nurse’s heart break in his eyes and tears start to pool. Until Nurse asked, voice as gentle and scared as it had been in the moments before their first kiss, “Will, please.”

He drank the tea.

And he was right; he did die just a little bit on the inside for compromising himself like this.

William Poindexter still had a soft spot for Derek Nurse, not that he would ever admit it.


	6. Rewriting The Story: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for a sick fic chapter.

Chowder arrived shortly after, once Nurse had returned Dex’s drink to its place on the desk and helped Dex from the floor to Chowder’s bed. Dex had allowed Nurse, and himself, that much.

“I’m so sorry guys!” Chowder shouted as he burst in, gaze immediately finding Dex. He rushed over and opened his arms, then he paused, thinking better of it. “Can I…”

Dex opened his arms wide. Despite being upset with Chowder, he’d never deny a hug from his best friend. Maybe it would dull the searing pain left behind by the press of Nurse’s flesh against his own. Maybe it would even calm the ache in his fingers itching to reach out.

Chowder wrapped his arms around Dex, pulling him close. The puff of his breathe tingled the hair at the base of Dex’s neck, where Chris’ face was tucked. He rambled apologies that Dex only half-heard because Nurse was staring directly at them and he was staring back.

There was no reason for him to stay. Now that the door was open, Nurse could wordlessly slip away. But for once, he decided to stay. He waited until Chowder and Dex parted, waited to say goodbye to the both of them.

He called him Will. Dex didn’t know what to make of that, but he didn’t have the energy to call him out. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure he’d want to. Wasn’t sure it was worth it.

_X_

Apparently Dex’s body couldn’t handle two panic attacks in one day on top of his usual physical, mental, and emotional stress. The next morning, when his alarm woke him for practice, his entire body ached. A crippling headache pounded his skull. His throat burned.

He called Chowder. Chowder could take notes for him in their shared classes and get him any work he needed, and he could tell the coaches and captains that he was sick. Chow, the amazing friend he is, agreed and also offered to bring him food later.

Dex fell back asleep.

A while later, he opened his eyes to see his D-man leaning over him. “D?”

“Go back to bed, Willie,” he said, pressing a cool hand to Dex’s warm cheek.

It must be a dream, Dex decided, leaning into the touch and falling back asleep.

_X_

When Dex woke up, a thermos of soup, a container of pie, and some papers sat on his desk. They could have been left by anyone.

_X_

The weekend came and Dex only felt slightly better. Each day, food and drinks showed up on his desk while he was asleep and he consumed them before falling back asleep. If this hadn’t happened to him once before, he would have been concerned by the amount of time he spent in slumber.

No matter how shitty he felt, though, he needed a shower. Desperately. He probably needed to wash his sheets, too.

Dex forced himself out of bed and gathered his rank bedding in his arms. He stopped for a moment to grab his ID and keys, then went down to the laundry room. Luckily, nobody else thought to do laundry at 6am on a Saturday. He loaded a washing machine then went back to his room for his shower stuff.

He felt infinitely better after brushing his teeth and showering, until he turned the corner and saw Derek Malik Nurse standing outside his door holding a thermos and a container.

Dex should have known.

“Did Chow send you?” Dex asked, voice scratchy as he approached. He eyed the gatorade bottle in Nurse’s hand.

Which he promptly dropped, startled and losing his grip. The Gatorade survived. The tupperware in his other hand did not fare so well.

Sighing the whole way, Dex closed the gap between then. He leaned down and carefully lifted the container lid. Thankfully, most of the cookies landed on the lid. He folded the rest of the container over it and clicked it back into place. Only one cookie lost to the disgusting dorm carpet.

He tossed the casualty at Nurse and turned to his door. Once unlocked, he held it open and stood to the side. Might as well let him in.

Nurse scurried in, unusually obvious with his nervousness.

Dex tossed his laundry in the hamper and took a seat on his bed. He gestured to the desk chair for Nurse. He waited till he sat to speak. “So, why are you here?”

“I volunteered. Chow gave me the spare key you left him.”

Dex loved Christopher Chow but sometimes he wanted to kick his ass.

He didn’t have the energy for this anxiety or anger.

“Why would you volunteer?”

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Nurse. His eyes were drawn to him, magnetic, but he didn’t have the strength to follow through with that pull.

“I don’t want us to be like this.”

“There is no us!” Dex shouted, cutting Nurse off. While desperate for answers, he was also afraid. Answers aren’t always what you hope they are. “You made sure of that,” he added, an exhausting blend of venom and sadness in his voice.

In this moment, his exhaustion was a blessing. A panic attack would have taken more energy than he could muster. He was safe, from that at least, for now.

“That choice was yours.”

Nurse’s voice trembled, vulnerable. Weak. A mirror of Dex’s own turmoil.

He couldn’t resist the urge anymore. He looked up.

Derek Malik Nurse cried. He sat in Dex’s desk chair, tears leaving tracks down his cheeks.

Dex’s fingers itched to reach out, but he held back. He had to. “You’re right.” He was too tired, too gray around the edges. “You gave me the option, but the choice was mine. And I intend to live with the choice I made. What difference will it make to talk about it now?”

He wanted this; a reaction. Any reaction. And though he had wanted this for so long, he wasn’t sure he wanted it anymore. The part of him that still loved D couldn’t bear to see him cry.

“We don’t have to be at each other’s throats all the time, Will.” Will, again. Why did he call him that? Where did the hostility go? “I’m so tired of this. Aren’t you tired?”

Of course he was. Every moment spent fighting was another pebble of weight on his heart. But D didn’t want him, and Dex refused to hold onto someone who didn’t want to stay. Even if he seemed like he might change his mind. Dex was too afraid of being hurt again to entertain the possibility.

“You should go,” he ground out, trying his best to keep his tone neutral. His fists shook in his lap. “I need to go check my laundry.”

Nurse wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve and stood from the desk chair. He tried to smile but it was too watery to be convincing. “Let me help. You shouldn’t be doing this stuff when you’re sick.”

This sudden change in Nurse’s attitude was a nuisance. Dex needed some space, and he was far too physically exhausted to deal with this mindfuck. He wanted, needed, to be alone.

“Whatever.”

He let Nurse follow him to the laundry room. He even let him move load one from the washer to the dryer, then load two into the washer. He didn’t trust him to use the proper amount of detergent, so Dex did that part himself.

Nurse followed Dex back to his room.

“What are you trying to achieve, Derek?”

He could be civil, if he tried hard enough. The name Derek slipped out unprompted, an awkward but neutral halfway point between D and Nurse. Maybe that’s why he called him Will.

They returned to their previous posts, Will on the bed and Derek in the desk chair. Will watched Derek touch the flannel on the back of the chair, a gentle caress of the sleeve. He should have moved it.

Derek kept his gaze on the dangling sleeve. “I know we can’t….I know you don’t…”

The ending to the statement never came.

“You know I don’t what?” Dex asked impatiently, the anxiety starting to settle in. He grabbed a cookie from the nearby container and ate it in two bites. The sugar would help.

“I know you don’t want me.”

There was a big difference between the real Derek Nurse and the version of himself that he let people see. The real Derek Nurse had insecurities. He cared too much about what people thought of him. He feared loneliness as much as anyone else.

Will didn’t want to know this.

“And I know we can’t go back.”

Maybe Derek felt the same hurt Will did.

“But I can’t do this anymore. The fighting. The pushing you away.”

A cool hand brushed against Will’s cheek and he wondered when Derek came so close. It felt familiar, a mix of a memory and a dream. He instinctively leaned into it.

“I missed you,” Derek whispered, close enough for his breath to fan over Will’s face.

Dex jolted back, creating space between them. Nurse’s hand fell back to his side.

“You need to go.”

Hurt flooded Nurse’s features. He looked so different without his chill facade, so much younger. So much more familiar. “Will, I-”

“Nurse,” Dex growled out, body shaking. He needed to hide it. He needed distance. “Get out. None of this happened. Just leave me alone.” He knew he sounded desperate, but he didn’t care anymore.

Nurse stood motionless beside Dex’s bed, so Dex shoved him. Not hard, just enough to make him understand.

Dex needed him to understand, even if he didn’t want it.

“Is this really what you want?”

Once again, it seemed as if Nurse could read his mind. Dex turned away, unable to watch the disappointment in his face. “It doesn’t matter what I want.” It never mattered what he wanted.

“It always mattered what you want.” The words came in a whisper, so soft Dex could barely decipher it. But his ears were trained to hear D, no matter how quietly he spoke.

When Dex replied, he spoke even softer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be heard. “You didn’t want to stay. You didn’t want me. No matter what I wanted, I couldn’t make you stay. So I let you go.”

Silence dragged on for a while and Dex wondered if Nurse heard him.

“Neither of us really let go, did we?”

And with that, he left.

Dex foolishly wished he were brave enough to finally ask him to stay.


	7. Rewriting The Story: Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dex learns to be honest with himself, at least a little bit.

Life continued as usual, with one change; the fighting ceased. Dex and Nurse couldn’t fight if they avoided each other.

More specifically, Nurse avoided Dex. If he saw Dex, he turned tail and walked away. He sat far from him during team meals and on the bus for away games.

For someone who missed Dex, he tried really hard to stay away from him.

That’s the part of their conversation that stuck with Dex the most. Derek Malik Nurse, the person who pushed him away and broke his heart, missed him. While Dex was sick, Nurse brought him everything he needed.

Maybe his dream hadn’t been a dream. Nurse admitted to being in Dex’s room. It didn’t explain why Nurse stood over him or caressed his face, though.

One other thing from their conversation struck a chord with Dex. “I know you don’t want me,” Nurse said.

Dex had been in denial but faced with this he had to be honest, at least with himself. He never stopped wanting Derek Malik Nurse.

He didn’t know the new Derek Malik Nurse, though, and that was scary. Being in love with thirteen year old D was not the same as loving Nursey. He was the same person in a literal sense, but they’d both changes a lot in the past years.

They spent so much time fighting that Dex hadn’t learned anything about him.

He didn’t want to learn. That would make it harder to let him go.

But who was he kidding? Nurse was right. He wasn’t ready to let go.

He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.

Not that it mattered, because, once again, Nurse took that choice from him. Nurse wanted to avoid him. Dex could do that.

It lasted till the end of the semester came and the move-out date drew near. They needed to talk about the roommate situation. Were they really going to share a room?

The team met up for brunch every weekend and Dex used it as an opportunity to corner Nurse.

He caught him coming out of the bathroom and blocked the door so he couldn’t leave.

“Are we rooming together next year or not?”

Nurse was understandably frazzled, caught off guard. “I, uh...Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

“We need to make a schedule for moving stuff in,” Dex said, leaning back against the doorframe so Nurse would pass through if he tried. He hoped to seem calm, but internally he was a mess. A forest fire spreading, wreaking havoc. “We’ll talk about it later.”

They talked about it later, with minimal arguing. When they moved their stuff in, the stuff they were leaving at Samwell over the summer, they hardly spoke a word to each other. Only when necessary. Where should the desks go? Who got top bunk? Dex offered to reassemble the bunk bed when he got back since he had to be back a few days early anyway. He did not say why (physical therapy scheduling). Nurse did not ask.

William J Poindexter and Derek Malik Nurse did not say goodbye.


	8. Rewriting The Story: Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek Nurse can't cook. Dex just wants some peace and quiet to fix up the Haus.

Will liked summer break. He didn’t need to be on guard all the time, afraid Nurse could walk around any corner. Here, he was safe.

He used to think D would come back, at least to visit. He didn’t. Not even a call.

It used to hurt. Now it gave him a sense of security. Once the place he knew he could always find D, now the place he knew he would never find Nurse.

He ignored the ache in his chest at the thought.

_X_

Will worked on his uncle’s lobster boat. He did his exercises. He jogged when he had the extra time. It was boring, and it was perfect.

Summer ended too fast.

_X_

Nobody else was at the Haus when Dex arrived. It sat empty and full of dust from months of disuse. Dex started by dusting and sweeping, all the while making a mental list of tasks to be done before the others arrived. Not including today, he had two days to complete at least a weeks worth of work. He should have left home sooner, but he was needed there.

He’d make it work. If he worked basically non-stop, cut down on sleep, made food trips as quick as possibly, he could do it. Three hours of sleep a night and granola bar meals. Breaks for meetings with his physical therapist and coaches. He could do it.

As always, Derek Nurse threw a wrench in his plans.

In this case, he did it by scaring the shit out of Dex at 1am.

Dex stood beside their half-assembled bunk bed, trying his best to put it together without an extra set of hands. It’d be difficult, but he could do it. The music blaring through his headphones kept him focused.

A hand dropped onto his shoulder.

Dex kept one hand on the bed to keep it stable and swung with the other, narrowly missing the intruder.

Nurse’s reflexes and Dex’s exhaustion saved him from a nasty hit.

“Whoa, Will, it’s just me!” he shouted, dropping his duffle bag.

“What the fuck, Nurse?!” Dex shouted, yanking his earbuds out with his free hand. “Nobody was supposed to be here for days! What’re you doing here?”

“Change of plans.” Nurse eyed the half-full coffee cup on a nearby desk and the bags under Dex’s eyes. “I thought you’d be asleep by now so I was going to drop my bag and sleep in Chowder’s room. Are you planning to finish that tonight?”

Dex turned back to the rickety bed, held together mostly by his hand. “Yeah. When else am I supposed to do it?”

“Tomorrow? After you’ve slept?” he replied, as if it were obvious.

“Tomorrow I have other stuff to fix.” Dex ran through his mental list on autopilot. “The basement stairs that are rotting through will collapse any day now. At least one faucet in the Haus is leaking.”

“And you have to do everything tomorrow?” Nurse interrupts, cutting off the list.

“Well, I can’t do them once people are here. They’ll get in the way.”

A moment passed. Nurse sighed and pushed his bag towards the door, out of the way. “What do you need me to do?”

“What?”

“This will be faster with two people, right? I’ll help. It’s chill.”

Dex groaned instinctively at the word, but accepted the help.

Derek was right; it was faster with two people. They set up the bunk bed earlier than Dex had expected, leaving him just enough energy to move his mattress to the lower bunk before passing out on it. He fell asleep in his jeans, with his shoe-clad feet dangling off the edge, and he couldn’t care less.

_X_

Dex didn’t realize his shoes were off till he got out of bed to his 6am alarm and found them beside his bed.

He tried to ignore that, but he couldn’t ignore the burning smell coming from downstairs.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” Dex muttered, running down the stairs. “What did this idiot do this time?”

Apparently, he burnt toast.

“Hey, Will!” Nurse says with a smile, angling his body to hide the toaster, as if that would erase the stench of char or wisps of smoke. “You’re up early.”

“I have work to do,” Dex grumbled, pushing past Nurse to open the window and air out the room. “Why’re you up so early? And what made you think you could use Bitty’s kitchen? He ban you from touching anything in freshman year.”

“Well, Bitty’s not here to stop me and I was hungry.”

“Bitty may not be here to stop you but I am.”

Nurse’s expression melted into something sour, lips pursed. “So you’re Bitty’s minion now?”

“No! I just don’t want you burning the Haus down! If you need something to eat, let me know and I’ll cook.” Dex didn’t have time for the extra work, but it was better than the alternative of losing his housing to an avoidable kitchen fire.

Nurse’s expression melted back into something more docile. “You know how to cook?”

“Do you really think my mom would let me not know how to cook?” Dex quiped, for a moment forgetting the reality he lived in. The one in which he and Derek Nurse were not childhood sweethearts or friends.

Nurse chuckled. “I guess not.”

“Sit down and I’ll make the toast.”

They occupied the kitchen in silence, the only noise made by Dex shuffling about the room. They ate the toast in silence, too, and when they finished, neither boy made a move to speak.

Dex couldn’t wait all day for him to speak. He’d never move on with his day if he did that.

“Why did you come back early?”

“I told you, my plans changed.” Nurse avoided Dex’s insistent gaze.

That wasn’t good enough. If it was something simple, he would’ve said it. “What changed?”

“I…” Dex waited, and this time he didn’t need to prompt Nurse again to make him continue. He spoke softly, nervous. “I found an old photo.”

“Of what?” Dex asked automatically, not taking the time to figure it out for himself. The answer came to him as the words fell from his lips. What kind of photo would bring Derek back to him?

Instead of answering, Nurse put his hand in his pocket and pulled the picture out. It was a print, the type you had to send out for developing and printing. Dex didn’t have this photo at home so Derek’s moms must have forgotten to give him a copy.

He remembered the moment. Willie was twelve. The Nurse family took him with them to an aquarium and told the boys to wander off on their own. They were so excited to be trusted to go off on their own. They touched jellyfish. They watched aquarium staff feed fish to seals in exchange for tricks. D teased him in front of the lobster tank, and when Willie’s face went red, D kissed his cheek. Flash!

Looking at the photo reminded Dex of how much more he smiled as a kid.

Back then, he had a lot to smile about.

“It made me realize I haven’t seen you smile in forever, and I remembered you were here all alone. I know you don’t like being alone.”

“Didn’t,” Dex rushed to say. “I didn’t like being alone. Now, I’m fine with it. I prefer being alone, actually. I can be more productive that way.”

“But what if you have nothing to do?”

“There’s always something to do.” Dex stood from the table, pushing his chair back harshly, causing it to grate against the floor. He added the wobbly back leg to his mental list. “I’m already behind schedule.”

Without another word to Nurse, he left.

He didn’t want these reminders. He didn’t want to think what it meant for Nurse to rush to him. He came back to Samwell in the middle of the night, two days early, so Dex wouldn’t be alone. How could Dex deal with that?

He couldn’t, so he pushed it back in his mind and got to work.

Thankfully, Nurse had the sense to stay out of Dex’s way till Dex had to leave for his appointment. Nurse occasionally popped his head out of their room to ask if Dex needed help, but otherwise kept himself confined to the room. It surprised Dex; Nurse used to go out of his way to bother him. Now, he purposely stayed out of Dex’s way and tried to be helpful.

Dex stopped in their room briefly before his appointment to grab his bag and leave Nurse with a few warnings. Nurse sat at his desk and looked up when Dex came in. “Hey, Nurse. I’m heading out for a meeting with the coaches. The faucet isn’t working in our bathroom so use the other one, and don’t go in the basement because I’m working on the stairs.”

Nurse smirked as if in on a secret, but Dex didn’t understand why. “A meeting with the coaches. Good for you, Poindexter.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re talking about scouts and prospects, right?”

Dex grimaced. Nurse must have been stupider than Dex thought for him to think Dex would be scouted. “I’m not looking into hockey after college,” Dex replied, trying to keep his answer vague.

“Why not?” Why did Nurse have to look so confused? It made Dex’s heart yearn for something he couldn’t have. “You’re a great player. The best defense partner I’ve ever had. Any team would be lucky to have you.”

Dex snorted, loud and unkind. He was already lucky enough that a college team wanted him. No professional team would ever consider him. He expressed as much while he packed his backpack. “Trust me, no pro team will want me, no matter how hard I work. Even getting a sports scholarship from Samwell was a surprise.”

“You’re a good player though.”

Dex walked towards the door, throwing one last cynical sentiment over his shoulder with a wry grin. “It doesn’t matter how good you are when you’re defective.”

He slipped out the door before Nurse could offer a reaction or ask for an explanation. The more people knew about him, the less they liked. That’s always how things turned out.

Either Nurse didn’t know or didn’t understand. Either way, Dex owed him no answers.

_X_

When Dex returned from his meeting, the Haus was empty again. He didn’t know where Nurse went, and he told himself he didn’t care. It didn’t matter as long as Nurse stayed out of his way. This way Dex could be productive without worrying about Nurse burning the house down or getting hurt. He was already short on time without a repeat of that morning’s cooking incident.

He was nearly done with the basement stairs when the slam of a door resounded through the Haus, shaking it. There wasn’t much left to do, only fifteen minutes or so of work, so he decided to finish before heading upstairs to check on Nurse.

Not that he was obligated to check on Nurse. It just seemed the safest option for everyone.

Right as Dex made the decision to wait, the door to the basement opened. Nurse stood at the top, a shopping bag in one hand and a shy smile on his face. “Hey, Will.” Again with the name? “Would you mind making dinner when you’re done? I picked up groceries.”

Dex wanted to say no but couldn’t. That morning he told Nurse to leave all cooking to him, digging this grave for himself. Plus Nurse paid for the ingredients, which technically meant free food for Dex. A balanced meal would be great since he still had work to do. His self-enforced granola bar diet wasn’t as efficient as he’d hoped it would be.

“I’ll be up in fifteen minutes. What’d you get?”

Nurse pulled a ridiculously long receipt from his pocket and read off the list. As he kept reading, Dex wondered how much Nurse spent.

“Jesus Christ, Nurse. Did you buy the whole store?”

“I didn’t know what to buy so I bought whatever sounded good.”

Dex sighed. He could’ve looked up a recipe online and made a list using that, but no, he had to buy probably a hundred dollars worth of groceries. “At least there’s probably enough food for tomorrow, too.”

“And snacks.”

Dex looked back down at the stairs, dismissing Nurse. He listened to the door close, softer than expected. Nurse must have eased it shut, probably so it wouldn’t shake the house and mess with Dex’s work. It was a thoughtful gesture. Dex didn’t like that.

He took an extra ten minutes, partly to be petty, partly to make sure everything was put away properly. The stairs looked nice, and they functioned well, so he crossed them off his mental list of things to do. There were plenty more tasks, but this was one of the larger, more time-consuming tasks and he was glad to be done with it. The meals Nurse funded were well-deserved.

When Dex entered the kitchen, he didn’t expect to see Nurse sitting at the kitchen table, patiently waiting and scrolling on his phone to pass time. He looked up at the sound of Dex’s footsteps approaching. Dex didn’t appreciate his smile. “Hey. The stairs come out well?”

Dex went to the fridge, then to the cabinets, assessing what they had as well as how much. They had everything they needed for a decent, and nutritious, stir fry. “Yeah, they’ll hold up for a while. Does stir fry sound good?”

“Whatever you want, man. You’re the chef. Can I help?”

Dex pulled a knife from their drawer and pointed it menacingly at Nurse, standing a few feet away for safety reasons. “No. You’re a safety hazard. Get out.”

Nurse pouted. The look was reminiscent of their childhood and Dex turned away to stall the nostalgia curling in his gut. “Can’t I just sit here and watch?”

Dex didn’t want the distraction, and he should’ve said no, but instead the word that spilled from his lips was “Fine.”

Nurse was probably smiling. Dex didn’t look to find out.

To Dex’s surprise, Nurse stayed out of his way for the whole cooking process. He let Dex cook rice and chop vegetables in peace, only speaking up when he had a question about the process. If Dex didn’t know better, he’d think that Nurse was paying close attention and trying to learn how to cook. But maybe he didn’t know better. This Nurse, the one that wasn’t thirteen and in love, mystified Dex; he never knew what would happen next. One moment he ignored Dex, the next he showered Dex with a kindness he’d never known.

Dex didn’t like mysteries, and he definitely didn’t like surprises. Therefore, he shouldn’t have liked Derek Malik Nurse. But here he was, making the guy dinner.

Derek said thank you to Dex for the food. He told Dex it was delicious. He asked if Dex wanted more before dishing out seconds for himself.

What the fuck.

“You’re being really weird,” Dex said when Derek offered to do the dishes.

“You did all the cooking so it’s only fair,” Derek said, turning the faucet on and dowsing the sponge in soap. His method wasn’t practical, but Dex was more focused on the conversation than Derek’s dishwashing technique. “Plus, you have plenty of other shit to do. Chill, Will.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” The words slipped from his mouth without a conscious thought. He’d been wondering, but now it was time for answers, or at least his mouth thought so.

“Calling you what?” Derek asked the sudsy plate in his hands, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“You keep calling me Will.”

“It’s your name.”

“Technically, my name is William,” Dex said just to be contradictory.

Derek turned to throw a grin over his shoulder. “Want me to call you that instead?”

“I don’t want you calling me at all.”

Derek’s face fell, dropping his lips into a serious line. He turned back to the dishes so Dex couldn’t see his face as he spoke. “I’m trying to make this work, Will. It could be easy if we let it.”

Things were never easy for William J Poindexter. Not his health, not his aspirations, and especially not his relationship with the new Derek Malik Nurse.

“How do you suggest we do that?” Dex asked, anxiety rising and flooding over him in his chair. “Ignore everything that’s happened and pretend to be friends? Act like we used to before all the bullshit?” His voice rose as he spoke, crescendoing on bullshit before descending back down with as much composure as he could muster. Anger came naturally, the reaction he conditioned himself to have, but that flame burnt out quick and left him vulnerable. “What does easy even mean?”

“If we can both chill for ten minutes and talk shit out, maybe we’d know. I want to know you, and I want you to know me.”

“What if I don’t want to?” He didn’t want to know the new Derek Nurse. That would make him seem more human, more real. The more time he spent with Derek, the more difficult it became to stay resolute. Dex wanted it, but he didn’t want to want it.

“Then look me in the eyes and tell me to fuck off. But for once can you please do what you want. Not what you think you should. Not what you think others want you to do. Whatever you want, just do it.”

Maybe it’s because he was delirious with lack of sleep. Or maybe because the meal was good. If he was honest with himself, it was because he was so tired of the way things were and sick of pushing himself to say no.

Dex stood from his chair, causing it to scrape the floor again. He reminded himself to fix the wobbly leg later. “Fine,” he said, stepping away from the table and pushing the chair in. “Ten minutes. I’ll be in our room.”

It felt like a waste of time, waiting for Derek. The wobbly chair leg needed attending to. So did their bathroom faucet. He could have spent his time productively, but instead he was laying on the bottom bunk listening to music and staring at the slats of the upper bunk. He let his eyes drift closed, just for a minute.

When he reopened them, the room was dark around him. No light filtering in through the windows. No lamp shining at him.

Dex rummaged around his sheets, trying to find his phone. No luck. He tried to roll to the edge of the bed to check if it fell, but a heavy blanket was on top of him. He didn’t remember climbing under his blanket. He made grabby hands at his sheets again; his blanket was still beneath him. The top blanket wasn’t his.

He fell asleep with his shoes on, but now he wore only socks.

Dex threw the blanket back and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. If he was right, if the same thing happened…

The shoes were placed neatly together beside his bed.

Derek must have moved them. Following that logic, he might have moved Dex’s phone too. The night before, Dex plugged his phone into his charger and left it on his desk. If Derek noticed that, maybe he followed that routine.

Dex stood and stepped around his shoes, careful not to trip on them or anything else. Thankfully, the desks were close and he reached it with minimal trouble. Dex groped the top of the desk, hand catching on notebooks and pens on the wrong side, before he finally made it to the far left corner where the phone would be if plugged in. He grabbed it triumphantly and took it with him out into the hallway.

Bathroom breaks in the middle of the night were such a hassle.

And that’s what it was: the middle of the night. Dex went up to their room around seven, and it was already past two. Dex was supposed to lose ten minutes to a conversation with Nurse, not seven hours. He didn’t have time for this. There was work to be done.

He planned to slip back into his room to grab his shoes then sneak out, careful not to wake Derek, but when he returned from the bathroom the light in their room was on and Derek sat hunched over his desk.

“Hey, Will,” Derek said when Dex opened the door, his voice thick with sleep. His voice sounded good like that. Dex told his brain to shut the fuck up.

“Did I wake you?” He’d been careful, and Derek wasn’t a light sleeper according to all their roadies, but maybe. He walked over to his bed and sat down to put on his shoes.

“Nah. I rolled over and nearly suffocated in my pillow.”

Dex had to snort at that. It was such a Nursey thing to do. Not that Dex could explain what that meant. “Why aren’t you heading back to sleep?”

Derek lifted his head and turned to Dex. Despite the bags under his eyes, Derek still looked unfairly pretty. Dex didn’t like the upward curl of Derek’s lips or his knowing gaze. “Why aren’t you?”

“Because I wasted my night sleeping instead of doing work that needed to be done,” Dex said, pulling on his shoes.

“The work will be there in the morning.”

“It is the morning and the work needs to get done. I’ll be quiet coming in if the light’s off.”

Derek didn’t make any more attempts to keep Dex in the room. He turned back to whatever he was working on at his desk and said “Let me know if you need any help.”

Dex did not need his help. He did a perfectly fine job fixing the wobbly kitchen chair and their bathroom faucet on his own. He caught up on his tasks for the night with enough time to get another hour of sleep before he had to be up.

Sleep for an hour. Make breakfast so Derek doesn’t burn the house down. Go to physical therapy. Come home and get as much work done on the Haus as possible before people started arriving around 8am the next day.

It surprised Dex that Derek did nothing to throw a wrench in his plans. When Dex woke up to his alarm, Nursey got up too and made coffee while Dex got ready for the day, meaning there was fresh coffee waiting when he went down to make breakfast.

Dex cooked french toast and bacon. Derek said thank you to Dex for cooking. He told Dex how good it was. He insisted on doing the dishes. This time, Dex let it all happen. If Derek’s smiles were any indication, he was glad.

Physical therapy came and went with no issue.

Derek stayed out of Dex’s way while he worked on the Haus, except to see if he needed help and ask Dex to make dinner. They ate another awkward meal together, though it didn’t feel as awkward as Dex thought it should. Maybe this is what Derek meant by letting it be easy.

He still owed Derek that conversation.

Strike that. He owed Derek Malik Nurse nothing. But maybe Dex owed it to himself, and that was enough for him to seek Derek out a while after dinner, once Derek finished dishes and Dex could build the courage to make himself have this conversation.

Derek was sitting at his desk again, though instead of being hunched over, he sat up so he wasn’t leaning on the desk. There seemed to be something spread out across it, though Dex only got a glimpse before Derek bundled them and threw a notebook over the top. A secret.

“Hey, Will,” Derek said with more smile than reasonable. “I thought you were working on stuff.”

Why was he being so defensive? “We didn’t have that talk last night. We’re having it now.”

Derek’s smile fell, barely hanging on at the corners. “Now now?”

“Yes.”

Dex expected Derek to leave the mess on his desk as it was, or for him to maybe try to clean it and properly hide it. He hadn’t expected Derek to remove the notebook off the top and spread the things out again.

“Come look at these.”

When Dex approached the desk, he quickly realized the items were photographs. Some were polaroids, other prints. They were all years old, from when they were younger. Copies of most of them were in a box in the back of Dex’s closet at home, not that he would let Derek know he kept them.

Or maybe he would. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

“Why do you have these?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to get rid of them. They’re important to me.”

Dex was starting to realize that Derek cared more than he’d thought. An easy feat, considering Dex didn’t think he cared at all the year prior. Dex had hoped Derek cared at least a little bit, but this was a lot more than he could have imagined.

Derek came back to the house in the middle of the night two days early because he didn’t want Dex to be alone. He brought their old photos with him to school and spread them out on his desk to look at when he didn’t think Dex would notice. He bought groceries and offered Dex help and stopped trying to fight.

They could let it be easy.

“Why did you leave?” Dex asked in a small voice, leaning over Derek’s shoulder to look at the photos. He remembered all of these moments. Some were big moments, like the aquarium trip with Derek’s parents. Others were small and inconsequential: polaroid photos D took while Willlie washed dishes or did homework. So many little moments carved their way into his memory, and he hadn’t realized because he hadn’t let himself think about them in so long.

“You didn’t ask me stay,” Derek answered, voice equally small, like they were children of the past. With his face turned down towards the photos, Dex couldn’t see his expression. “Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”

“You wanted to leave.” Dex choked the words out, as if they physically pained him to say. The constriction in his chest supported that notion. “How could I ask you to stay, knowing that you didn’t want to?”

“I would have stayed if you’d asked me to.” Derek’s voice sounded as strained as Dex’s did.

Were those dark spots forming on the desk from tears?

“You wanted to go out into the world! Experience it! How could you possibly do that while anchored down to me?!” Dex didn’t want to be vulnerable. Maybe, if he approached this with anger, with a raised voice and flaming cheeks, it would be easier. Maybe, if he looked like a forest fire, he wouldn’t feel like a struggling candle flame.

Slowly, Derek wiped his face on his shirt and turned to face Dex, lifting from the chair to angle his full body. He gave Dex a full view of his face. Derek made eye contact, maintained it, and Dex couldn’t force himself to look away. “I never thought of you as a weight,” Derek said, his voice clear. Purposeful. Like he didn’t want any misunderstandings.

It was too late for that.

“Even if that’s true, it would’ve changed soon enough,” Dex grumbled, voice nearly incoherent, the opposite of Derek’s voice.

Somehow Derek managed to understand the words. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” The less Derek knew, probably the better for the time being. Dex was trying, a lot harder than he’d like to admit, and bringing up his problems would make everything more difficult. He changed the subject, though only slightly. “You never told me why you have those photos.”

“Because they’re important.”

“But why did you bring them here?”

“I’ve always brought them with me. I brought them to Andover, and I bring them to Samwell. It’s chill.”

“What? No! That is the exact opposite of chill!”

“Are you calling me hot, William?” Derek asked, throwing a smirk over his shoulder. The tear tracks cut the effect.

“Derek, I’m trying to be serious here!”

“Sorry. Defense mechanism.”

Maybe Dex wasn’t the only one that needed help healing.

They both cared enough to have regrets.

“We aren’t the same people we were as kids,” Dex said slowly, trying to parse out his thoughts as he spoke. He approached the topic with caution. “We can’t fix this like basement stairs.” Easily, he meant. With instructions and designated tools. Straight-forward.

“Maybe we can,” Derek said, a decidedly unchill smile spreading across his lips as he turned fully in his chair to face Dex. “You start at the bottom and work your way up, right?”

Dex supposed Derek was right; they could work from the ground up, relearning each other. If they wanted to. If they cared enough. D always had a talent for spinning Willie’s words into something more beautiful than they were.

“Why did you ignore me before? And why are you trying so hard now? What made you change your mind?”

Derek’s smile dropped immediately. “Why are you so upset about me leaving when you’re the one who insisted we break up?”

The question was met with silence; they both had questions they weren’t ready to answer.

A few moments of uncomfortable silence later, Derek turned back to the desk and tidied up the photos into a neat stack. He pulled a small box from his bottom right desk drawer and gently placed the photos into it before pushing the drawer closed. As he moved, he spoke. “What do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

He turned away from the desk to face Dex again, his expression open and earnest. No chill in sight. “I want to know you. And I want you to know me.” Derek’s hand lifted, as if to reach out, but he dropped it.

How could Dex possibly say that he wanted to hide without sounding like a silly child? At his core, that’s what he was: still a frightened child that felt abandoned by the person he loved most.

Dex wanted Derek in his life, yearned for it. He knew this wasn’t the same D from his childhood, but he wasn’t the same Willie either, and maybe that would make all the difference.

But what if he left again? Dex lost so much of himself the first time, he wasn’t sure he could handle it happening again. How much more of himself was there to lose?

His hands ached, in pain, to touch. He stuffed them in his pockets so he couldn’t reach out.

Dex wasn’t a brave person; he learned this about himself a long time ago. When scared, he often ran away.

Being left behind by D scared him, so he ran. He chose to end it before D did to protect a small piece of himself. He thought D loved him, but he didn’t, not enough to stay, so Willie didn’t think he loved him enough to remain together after he built a new life without him.

Now Dex had so many new, different fears. He feared that if he got his hopes too high, he’d be let down and hurt again. He feared that if Derek surpassed his expectations, Dex would feel a way he didn’t know how to handle.

Dex feared he may fall in love with Derek Malik Nurse all over again.

“We can try to be friends,” Dex whispered, face down, fire burnt out. Derek’s presence always seemed to either fan his flame or smother it. “I want to try.”


	9. Rewriting The Story: Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team returns. Dex is a fool.

Dex and Derek didn’t speak again that night, except to exchange goodnights. They didn’t set any ground rules or give any explanations, even though they should have, but now that they decided to be friends, they had time.

He needed the time to breathe and convince himself that he hadn’t made a huge mistake. Because this was scary. Terrifying, even. If he gave Derek a second chance to be with him, even as a friend, it was another chance to leave.

Dex was afraid that Derek would leave again. Maybe not in the physical sense, since Derek was a student at Samwell and probably wouldn’t abandon his studies just to avoid Dex, but in a figurative sense. He could emotionally check out like he did when they first started at Samwell. They could devolve back into fights, or worse, total silence. At least when they fought, Derek acknowledged his existence.

_X_

Dex woke up first, extra early to make sure there was food waiting for people when they arrived. He showered, dressed, then went downstairs to cook. He started with a fresh pot of coffee, then set to work cooking. There was still quite a bit of food left from Derek’s shopping trip, and upon inspecting the leftovers in their kitchen, Dex noticed something he hadn’t before.

As far as he could remember, Dex had never seen Derek eat american cheese. He vaguely remembered Derek saying he didn’t like it, actually, if Dex thought hard about it. Yet there it was in their fridge, on top of a pack of sliced cheddar. Derek’s favorite, if Dex recalled correctly, which he probably did. Even without trying to, he paid far too much attention to Derek Nurse.

Dex set to work making a pie, hopefully a pleasant surprise for Bitty, who would be the first to arrive. Dex loved his teammates, but Bitty was the easiest for him to be around. Bitty understood what it was like to be a scholarship student on a team with a bunch of rich kids. They gossipped about the ridiculous things their teammates did, or how absurd it was that they didn’t know things like how to change a toilet paper roll. Bitty taught Dex how to bake, and Dex helped Bitty hone his cooking skills. Nobody really noticed, but Dex helped cook a healthy portion of Haus meals.

Feet stomped down the stairs, causing a few steps to groan in a way Dex didn’t trust. Another thing to add to his list. Derek appeared in the doorway bed-rumpled and went straight for the coffee.

“Mornin’,” Derek mumbled around the brim of his mug.

Dex, having just slid the pie into the oven, set the oven timer and turned to the fridge. “Good morning. Omelette good?”

“Perfect. Cheddar and spinach?”

“I can do that,” Dex said, pulling out the necessary ingredients. He also pulled out the american cheese for himself. “I don’t know why you bought american cheese when you don’t eat it.”

“I bought it because you like it, though I don’t know why.”

This stopped Dex in his tracks, hand frozen on the egg carton in the fridge. He pulled it out and set it on the counter with less care than he should have. “You can’t just buy stuff because I like it!”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s…” Dex took a moment to think of the right words for it. “...too much. That’s too much.”

It wasn’t like Dex cooking him food; that was for their safety. There was no reason for Derek to buy something just for Dex. When did he even learn that Dex likes it? How? Dex remembered Derek’s dislike because seeing the two cheeses together triggered a memory, but it made no sense for Derek to both know Dex’s preference and buy something only Dex liked. It was weird and confusing and he didn’t want to think about it but he couldn’t stop.

“It’s just cheese, Dex. Chill.”

Ah, and there was Nurse’s trademark chill, back in full force. Dex should’ve fucking known.

Dex did the opposite of chill. A panic surged up in his throat but he choked it down, because no way was he going to have a panic attack straight through the pie timer. He choked it down and washed it away with coffee.

It was fine.

Really.

He’d expected this.

Dex worked in silence. He made Nurse’s omelette first and slid the plate in front of him at the table, hoping to get rid of him fast. Then he turned to make his own omelette, using the stupid special cheese bought just for him.

“Thanks, Will,” Nurse said, his voice fonder than Dex could stand.

He couldn’t do this.

Dex, with all the calmness he could muster, turned off the stove and moved the skillet off a hot burner. He turned off the oven and the timer; he could finish baking the pie later, or Bitty could turn the oven back on when he arrived, whichever came first.

“Hey Will, what’s wrong?” Nurse asked around a mouthful of egg when he noticed Dex walking towards the door.

“Nothing, Nurse. It’s chill,” he spat out before storming off.

Dex heard Nurse scramble to get out of his chair and knock it over in the process, but he kept going. His feet brought him to their room and he locked the door behind him. Who cared if this was their room? He needed it to himself right now.

“Will, are you okay?” Nurse called through the door, knocking gently. Dex had thought he’d try to barge in. Another soft moment Dex couldn’t figure out.

Everything ached and itched and shook. He slunked down against the closed door, taking the extra steps to his bed or a chair too much for him to handle. He braced himself against the door and shook against it. Was he crying? He thought he was crying, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

Derek spoke through the door, but Dex couldn’t understand. Instead of processing the words clearly, his brain registered Derek’s voice as a hum. Soothing, actually, as much as he hated that. He wanted it all to go away.

But not Derek. Not really.

Dex could only keep him out for so long before he gave in for both their sakes.

When he came out of his panic attack, Dex wished he’d eaten, because he felt like shit. He felt so completely physically and mentally drained.

Nurse still spoke through the door. Dex didn’t understand his words at first, but then they faded in. He was telling a story from when they were kids.

“I didn’t tell you at the time but my moms were so pissed at me for staying out that late.” Nurse let out a soft chuckle. “They weren’t as mad once I told them what happened. It’s not like we meant to fall asleep in your basement; it just kind of happened. Our game was rough and your mom’s cooking was so good and I was so gone on you already. They took pity on me.”

Dex remembered that. They were waiting for the dryer to finish because it was Willie’s turn to fold laundry and D volunteered to help him fold the big green comforter that Willie couldn’t manage with his short child arms. Before his high school growth spurt, Dex was a little gangly thing.

“That was the day before you asked me out, right?” Dex rasped out, testing his voice. He needed water.

“If we can even call it that. Gosh, I was such a mess.”

Dex had expected Derek to ignore his question and ask how he was, so this silly answer caught him off guard and elicited a scratchy laugh. He really did need that water. “Even at eleven, you were a poet,” he joked.

Sometimes, D was far more eloquent than a child should be, like when his fingertips pressed metaphors of gentle flames into the flesh of Willie’s arm with a pen. The words came out a bit choppy, and they smeared easily, but they were beautiful nonetheless.

Other times, D was, as Derek so eloquently said, “such a mess.”

“I think we should do the dating thing because I’m gay for you,” were his exact words when he, a very awkward eleven year old, asked out his best friend.

It was pretty hard to forget.

Willie’s reply was pretty spectacularly bad, too, though, so he couldn’t judge much.

“We’re eleven, what kind of dates are you expecting us to go on? Candle lit dinner and a movie?”

“I was thinking ice cream after practice.”

“Okay. I can do that, though I don’t see the difference since we do that all the time anyway.”

The difference was hand-holding, and Willie lived for it. Willie was ecstatic on the inside, though he tried not to let it show. D saw through him, as he always had.

Dex wondered if Derek’s hands were harder now, more calloused. His were.

“Nah,” Derek spoke up, dragging Dex from his reminiscing. “I was just trying to impress you.”

Dex snorted. “You did a shit job.”

“Hey, it still got me you, didn’t it?”

It did. But then D left and Willie let him and now they were Nurse and Poindexter, or Derek and Will sometimes, and they didn’t have each other.

If he wasn’t still coming down from his panic attack, he would’ve had a second one.

“Yeah,” Dex muttered, throat itching painfully. Why was he talking instead of getting water? The bathroom was so close. “You had me.” For the eleven years of their friendship. For the nearly three years of their relationship. D had him.

Not so much anymore, but they could try. He agreed to try.

“You told me to chill,” Dex finally explained. He owed himself an honest try at this. It was too early to give up. “I don’t like-....You didn’t used to be like that.”

An uncomfortable silence spread, and Dex nearly thought Derek hadn’t heard him. His irritated throat made it hard for him to speak at full volume.

“You didn’t used to be so incendiary.”

It felt like a lie. Dex had always been fire; D had waxed poetic about it frequently in their youth. “I’ve always been fire.”

“But you never burned like this,” Derek tried to explain through the door. “You used to be warm. Now it hurts to get near you.”

Dex knew this. It was the point of his angry, unpleasant demeanor: to keep people away. He was afraid of letting people close incase they decided to leave. “That’s the point. If people can’t get close, it won’t hurt when they leave.” He didn’t want to be vulnerable, but he said he’d give it an honest try, right? Softly, he added, “It’s easier that way.”

“Sometimes the easy way isn’t what we need.”

Derek was right, of course. Since when was he so wise? This was the idiot that tripped and fell in the lake their Sophomore year. Dex and Chowder had to fish him out, and Dex didn’t have time to go back to his down and change before class, so he dried himself off as best as he could with a bathroom drier and went to class damp and more disgruntled than usual. How could this asshole be so right when it mattered?

“I’m gonna get you some water. Can you unlock the door?”

“Yeah.”

While Derek was downstairs, Dex forced his wobbly legs to function and unlocked the door. He almost moved towards his desk chair but decided against it. Might as well go downstairs since he needed to finish breakfast and pie. He checked his phone; there were only about twenty minutes till Bitty arrived.

He nearly collided with Derek on the stairs. Dex barely managed to save the falling water glass from Derek’s hand.

“Should you be walking around?”

Derek’s concern tugged at Dex’s stupid heartstrings.

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t. This was normal for him, though. If he didn’t get up and do something, he’d get stuck in an anxious loop. “I need to eat and finish the pie for when Bitty gets here.”

Dex moved past Derek to get back to the kitchen and Derek followed close behind.

“Why are you so hung up on Bitty?”

“How is that any of your business?”

“You’re right, it’s none of my business. Sorry.”

Dex groaned. Derek was being an idiot and getting into Dex’s business and making false assumptions. He hated that. It was none of Derek’s business, not anymore. But if Dex didn’t clear up this misunderstanding, it would be really awkward being friends with Bitty and Derek at the same time.

Dex checked the pie and turned the oven on, distracting himself from Derek’s face. He didn’t want to see what kind of expression he had. “He’s a gay scholarship student that likes to spend time in the kitchen. Sound familiar?”

“Yeah,” Derek replied, noisily pulling out a chair and sitting down.

“He’s someone I can relate to. We’re friends. That’s all. And I’d appreciate you not making things weird when we’re around Bitty because there is nothing to be weird about.”

“So you don’t have a crush on Bitty?” he asked slowly, as if trying to process it.

“No, he’s not even my type.” You are, Dex’s brain supplied unhelpfully. Dex’s type was very specifically Derek Malik Nurse. But he didn’t need to know that.

“What is your type?”

Of course he’d ask.

“It’s none of your business.”

They sat in silence while Dex cooked himself an omelette. He tried not to think so hard about the stupid cheese.

Derek thanked Dex for his food again, even though it’d gone cold by now. He complimented Dex’s cooking. He washed their plates while Dex tended to the pie and checked the kitchen for other things he could make for when people arrived.

Dex’s head was in the fridge when Bitty arrived.

“Hey yall!” Bitty shouted, warm as ever as he entered the kitchen. He carried grocery bags in one hand and his phone in the other. “Sorry I’m late! I needed to stop at the store. No way could my teammates come home to the Haus and not have a pie or five waiting for them.”

Dex looked at the clock on the oven that read 8:13. He hadn’t even noticed.

Bitty set his groceries on the table and looked at Dex. Past him, actually, to the pie cooling on the stove. “Oh! It seems like you beat me to it, Dex!”

“No way could my teammates come home to the Haus and not have a pie or five waiting for them,” Dex quoted with a smile, opening his arms for a hug.

Bitty gave great hugs.

“I didn’t get a pie.” Derek’s voice was joking, but his expression wasn’t quite there.

“You came home in the middle of the night with no notice, and I’ve been cooking for you since you got here,” Dex grumbled over Bitty’s shoulder before letting go. “No complaining.”

Dex watched Bitty give Derek his own hug, but Derek seemed stiff. He hoped it wasn’t that stupid hang-up he had on the non-existant crush.

“I’m glad to see you two civil!” Bitty turned away from them to unload his groceries. Derek and Dex shared a look but didn’t comment. “Did you boys enjoy break?”

Dex fell into easy conversation with Bitty, helping him sort through groceries and get started on more baking.

Bitty didn’t seem to notice when Derek slipped out, but Dex did.

Things couldn’t always be easy.

_X_

Dex spent the rest of the morning in the kitchen with Bitty, helping him bake pies and cookies. Enough for an army, by which he means the Samwell Men’s Hockey team and any accompanying family and friends. They greeted everyone with baked goods and the offer of real food if they needed it. Eventually, Bitty just delegated Dex to grilled cheese duty.

When everything slowed down a bit, Dex loaded two grilled cheeses onto a plate and excused himself to his room. He knocked before entering, as a courtesy, and found Derek at his desk with headphones on.

Derek nearly elbowed Dex in the face when he came up beside his desk and put the plate down. “Shit!”

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Dex mumbled, though it was kind of funny. “Eat some lunch then go say hi to the team. You’re still on dish duty.”

Derek smiled up at Dex and he fucking died. Straight up died. What kind of bullshit was this? “Thanks, Will. I’ll be down in a bit.”

Fucking bullshit.


	10. Rewriting The Story: Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dex and Derek are getting along. A secret gets out.

Being friends with Derek was easy.

Too easy.

It made Dex uneasy with how easy it was.

Dex didn’t cook just for Derek anymore, but he still helped Bitty in the kitchen, and Derek thanked Dex directly every time.

“Yo, Dex made this?” someone asked one day.

“He usually helps me cook. Yall never noticed?”

The resounding answer was no.

And Derek still did the dishes. Not all of them and not always, because this was a house full of hockey bros and they piled up dishes into mountains. But he always washed his dishes and Dex’s. Dex couldn’t remember the last time he did his own dishes.

He also tended to throw Dex’s laundry in with his own, which was kind of weird.

“You’re constantly busy and I need to do mine anyway. It’s chill.” Derek flinched the same time Dex did. “Sorry. Defense mechanism. I play things down when people try to make a big deal of something I don’t want to get into.”

“So it’s the Nursey version of, “Drop it, Nurse”?”

Derek chuckled at that. “Exactly.”

Being friends with Derek was easy, and it made Dex’s idiot heart act stupid. It jumped and flipped and burned when Derek was around.

Dex burned when Derek was around, but it wasn’t a third degree scarring sear like it used to be. Now, it was warm. Instead of scorching, Dex was warm.

He didn’t want to be. The more he let Derek in, the less safe Dex would be.

_X_

Nobody dared chirp Dex and Nursey for finally getting along. Maybe they were too afraid it’d break the fragile peace between them.

_X_

They ate meals together. Usually with other teammates, sometimes alone. Chowder was ecstatic that after two years they could finally peacefully eat meals together as a trio.

They did homework together, in the library or in their room. They didn’t even help each other with their work; they just kept silent company most of the time.

They started sitting together on roadies and didn’t once suggest wanting to kill each other.

They went into Boston together once when Derek accidentally ruined one of Dex’s sweaters and insisted on buying him a replacement (the hot soup fucked Dex’s hand up extra for a few days, but he didn’t let Derek know. He didn’t want Derek to feel bad. It really was an accident).

Dex considered them friends. He wasn’t prepared to spill all his secrets to the guy, but their friendship was comfortable. Or at least as comfortable as friendship with the ex-boyfriend you’re still kind of in love with and who may still be kind of in love with you can be.

That was the problem, one Dex tried really hard not to think about.

He was still kind of in love with D. But even worse, he was starting to fall in love with Derek, too. If he was just hung up on who he used to be, maybe Dex could get over it. But he was falling for who he is, and that was dangerous.

Derek was nice, and funny, and poetic. Everything D had been, but older. Rougher around the edges. Anxious, like Dex but in a different way.

D turned into Derek without Willie around, just like Willie turned into Will without D around.

Derek was proving that he cared about Will, and that scared him. If Derek came up to Dex one day and said “I love you,” what would Dex do?

He tried not to think about it. The idea was ridiculous and Dex wasn’t foolish enough to hope.

_X_

The new sweater Derek picked out was a deep green that complimented Dex’s skin and hair nicely and was way too soft to be a reasonable price.

“Derek, you’re not buying me an expensive sweater, are you?”

Derek shrugged with a smirk. “Expensive is a subjective term.”

He made Dex wait at the door so he’d stop whining about how expensive everything was. Derek refused to give Dex the bag until they got home. Dex barely noticed Derek pulling tags out of the bag while Dex stopped in the kitchen to grab a slice of pie (or two, because it would be rude not to get Derek one).

Once in their room, Dex exchanged the pie slice for the shopping bag, suspicious of Derek’s grin.

This asshole not only bought Dex the stupidly expensive (amazingly soft holy shit) green sweater, but also a pair of presumably equally expensive (definitely equally soft) gloves. They were dark brown and smooth, probably leather, and they had fluffy white lining on the inside.

“I already took off the tags. No returning them.”

Just this once, Dex let Derek spoil him with minimal pushback. He needed a quality pair of gloves. “Thank you.”

Derek’s smile was so pretty Dex nearly puked.

_X_

Because of the soup spill, Dex had to rearrange a physical therapy appointment. Unfortunately, he could only reschedule it to a time when he was meant to be at practice.

“It’s fine,” Coach Hall said when Dex asked. “With all the extra ice time you do, you can stand to miss a practice. Get one of the boys to fill you in later.”

“Thanks, coach.”

So instead of going to morning practice, Dex got up at his usual time, did his usual routine, but then went to the library. He didn’t want to be called out for sleeping in, because he’d have to explain why, and it was too early for that shit. If anyone asked later, he could say he had a doctor’s appointment. Not technically a lie.

Dex got some work done, had his physical therapy appointment, and went on with his day. Instead of sitting with teammates for lunch like he normally would, he stuffed a to-go box in his backpack and went back to the library to get more work done before his next class. Another dining hall to-go box and some computer lab time for dinner. He didn’t get back to the Haus till near ten. He said hey to whoever was in the livingroom but didn’t even look to see who it was, he was so exhausted. He just wanted to change into pajamas and throw himself at his bed.

Apparently Derek was waiting up for him. He sat in the bean bag next to the door, book in his hands but no headphones on. He closed the book and put it down when Dex opened the door. He didn’t even bother with a bookmark.

“Where have you been all day?” Derek asked, voice just short of accusatory.

Dex was too tired for this. “Busy getting my ass kicked working on a project.” He kicked his shoes off and grabbed pajama pants from his dresser. He put his bag on his desk just to get it out of the way.

He was halfway through the bathroom door when Derek said, “Coach Hall told me you missed practice for physical therapy this morning.”

Dex froze. Shit. He hadn’t thought to tell the coaches not to mention it. Some people on the team knew, but just past/present captains and Chowder, and he only told Chowder because he was so sad about how little time Dex had to hang out. And because he trusted Chowder, of course. It was a secret, but it was the kind that’s bound to get out eventually. Derek was one of the people he really didn’t want to know.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How is it any of your business?!” Dex shouted, still standing in the bathroom doorway, looking in at the door connecting to Chowder’s room. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want Derek to know.

“You told Chowder I knew.” Now his tone was definitely accusatory.

“Drop it, Nurse.” Derek knew this meant to stop, that this topic was a taboo. He should have stopped.

He didn’t.

He did become softer, though. He replaced the accusatory tone with a soothing, quiet one. Patient.

“Why are you in PT, Will?”

Dex stepped into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

Was he going to panic? He was going to panic. He was panicking. Nope, that’s why he didn’t want to talk about it. Fuck that. Maybe Derek would change his mind about Dex and cut off their friendship and Dex would be spared the embarrassment of explaining how defective he was.

A minute later Derek walked in through Chowder’s door because Dex, a dumbass, forgot to lock the other door.

“Come on, we’re going back to our room,” Derek said, grabbing Dex by his arms and pulling him up. He reached around Dex to unlock the door, then pushed Dex into their room. He navigated him to the lower bunk and pressed down on his shoulders so he’d sit on the edge. “It’s okay, Will. I shouldn’t have pushed. I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

Derek sat close, pressed to him from Dex’s right shoulder to leg, with one hand rubbing circles into Dex’s back. The anxiety retreated slowly, seeping out. It was okay. Derek would stop asking. Things were okay.

But they weren’t. As long as it was a secret from Derek, it would loom over Dex as something to be anxious about. If he didn’t say it, there would be constant anxiety about it coming out. At least he’d be able to control how it came out if he said it himself now.

Well, not right now. He was still riding out his anxiety and everything felt weird because of it. He’d say it soon, after feeling returned to his fingertips and he could taste something other than blood from biting a tear into his lower lip.

Derek told some random story Dex didn’t pay attention to, trying too hard to focus on Derek’s voice. Trying to focus on the words would be too much, but listening to the cadence of Derek’s voice as he wove his way through a story was enough. It grounded him to the point where he could breathe, and move, and confide.

“Remember in eighth grade when I started complaining about my hands?”

Dex didn’t actually expect Derek to remember, so it surprised him when Derek said, “Of course I remember. I kept telling you to see a doctor but you told me it was no big deal.”

“Well, it turned out to be a big deal.” Derek’s hand stilled on Dex’s back but Dex kept going. Now that he started, he needed to get it out. He needed Derek to understand. “They hurt sometimes, and they ache a lot of the time, and occasionally they’ll just kind of stop what they’re doing. Samwell was the only place to offer me an athletic scholarship and PT is part of the deal.”

“So when you said no pro team would want you…”

“Yeah.”

“And that time you dropped your stick during practice?”

Dex had nearly forgotten about that. “Yeah.”

“Fuck, I was such a dick about that.”

Dex chuckled. This whole conversation was surprisingly easier than he thought it would be. For starters, Derek’s hand had resumed rubbing circles into Dex’s back. Plus, Derek chuckled along with him.

“We were both dicks about a lot of things,” Dex said, turning his face into Derek’s shoulder. “But not anymore. It’s easy when we let it be.”

Derek shuffled his arms so that they came up around Dex’s torso in a hug. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was warm and familiar and painfully like home.

“I’ve got your back,” Derek mumbled into Dex’s hair. It tickled.


	11. Rewriting The Story: Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bitty asks questions. Dex finally feels okay enough to answer them.

Talking to Derek, living with him, sharing time and space and feelings with him, became something Dex looked forward to. Their relationship wasn’t fixed, they still had a lot to talk about and work through, but it was something good. Something happy. Sometimes it was so happy that Dex forgot to fear falling in love.

Then something happened, something small, to bring the fear back. Dex’s mom called and asked how he was doing, tentatively asked if he met someone special, so of course Dex lied and then sobbed into his pillow after the call ended. A conversation, too honest and raw to be heard by anyone else, was interrupted by someone walking into the kitchen and Dex panicked, wondering if they heard anything even though they probably didn’t. People infinitely prettier than him flirted with Derek at kegsters and all Dex could do was walk away with a drink in his hand and lay in the Haus’ yard.

The stars were visible this night, little speckles in the darkness. He tried to count them, if only to keep his mind occupied. He didn’t expect to count them earnestly. It was a bit harder than usual, two full cups of tub juice in, but he managed to get to forty-three before he heard someone join him on the ground.

“They remind me of you.”

Dex turned to look at Derek, but Derek faced up at the stars.

“Did you know that I used to count your freckles?” he asked, smiling. If Dex were sober and it was light enough to see clearly, he would think Derek looked almost sad. “You always had more in the summer. Sometimes I start counting them out of habit before I can stop myself.”

“Why do you stop?” Dex never wanted Derek to stop looking at him. It was easier to admit these things to himself when alcohol lowered his mental defenses. Derek was pretty and nice and he appreciated Dex in a way that nobody else bothered to.

Dex wanted to be wanted. He craved it, the constant reminder in the back of his mind that somebody cared about him. Specifically, he wanted it from Derek. Drunk Dex was foolish enough to want.

“Because I don’t want you to catch me staring.”

Dex snorted. “Well, telling me kinda ruined that.”

“I guess you’re right. That means now I can stare without worrying about you catching me, though. Unless you don’t want me to stare.”

Apparently Drunk Dex had no filter because his reply was dangerously close to a confession. How many drinks had he had? Was it really just the two? Maybe it was a particularly strong batch of tub juice. “I always want your eyes on me.”

He felt Dereks hand find his on the ground and intertwine their fingers.

“My eyes always want to be on you.”

_X_

Dex had regrets. So. Many. Regrets.

That was his thought when he woke up the morning after the kegster with a splitting headache, caused by a truly disastrous hangover. This was why he didn’t drink often; it hit him like a truck the next morning.

He rolled out of bed, still wrapped in his blanket, and landed on the floor in a blanket burrito.

“You okay there, Will?”

Dex just groaned. How could Derek sound, not only awake, but not dying this early after a kegster? He tried to ask the time but it was muffled by the blanket cocoon.

“It’s 8am and there’s water and Advil on your desk,” Derek answered, as if reading Dex’s mind. A fucking angel.

Dex felt a lot more human after unraveling and taking the medicine. “Why aren’t you hungover?” he asked, voice scratchy. He drank more of the water to soothe it.

Derek shrugged from his seat at his desk. “Didn’t drink.”

“Nursey didn’t drink at a kegster? Really?”

Derek shrugged again. It was starting to get on Dex’s nerves. “I had better things to do.”

“What could possibly be a better thing for you to do than drink at a kegster?” Derek loved to drink at kegsters. He made such a habit of it that every party had someone assigned to Nursey Patrol so he wouldn’t fall from a table while dancing or break an arm climbing a tree.

“Stargazing with your drunk ass. Maybe Dex Duty should be the next big thing.”

The night was a bit of a blur in Dex’s mind and he had to think hard for a few minutes to remember what happened. He had a few drinks. People flirted with Derek, people actually in Derek’s league. He counted stars even though they were a bit wobbly.

“You held my hand,” he said as much as he asked. 

“That… is a thing I did, yeah.” Derek’s voice had no chill, and Dex bet that if he looked at Derek’s face there would be a blush.

“Very eloquent,” he chirped, because it came naturally. Because it was easy.

Because chirping and holding hands with and loving Derek Malik Nurse was easy when he let it be. And god, did he want it to be. He hated the anxiety and uncertainty and fear of being abandoned.

They were adults now. In less than two years, they’d have degrees and the ability to go wherever they wanted. Derek’s parents couldn’t drag him around. Dex wasn’t twelve and anchored at home. They could stay or go wherever they wanted. They could do it together, if they wanted to.

Dex was too hungover for this shit. “I’m going back to bed.” He picked up his blankets from the floor and re-cocooned himself in bed.

“Goodnight, Will,” Derek chuckled.

Dex mumbled something like a goodnight before falling back asleep.

_X_

Of course Dex had to deal with his hangover revelation at some point. And the handholding. Not just the kegster handholding, but also the handholding they sometimes did when alone together. Studying in the library, sitting side by side at one of the tables. Watching Netflix together on Dex’s bunk using Derek’s laptop. Occasionally even when walking around campus. They needed to talk about it before someone noticed it and made assumptions.

Dex walked into the Haus after class and was surprised by how quiet it was. For once, there didn’t seem to be anyone home. Except for Bitty, whose presence could be determined by the smell of fresh baked goods.

“Dex, honey, is that you?”

“Yeah, Bitty!” Dex dropped his bag and jacket on the couch in the livingroom and met Bitty in the kitchen.

It looked like a tornado hit, which was pretty normal with the way Bitty sress-baked. Every surface was covered with fruits or tins, flour and bowls. Bitty himself was busy building a lattice on a pie.

“Come help me! I have so much to do and I’d really appreciate some spare hands.” Bitty threw a smile over his shoulder and who was Dex to say no. He liked hanging with Bitty in the kitchen, anyway. It was a nice way to destress.

They chattered about school and hockey and missing food from home while Dex set to work on some cookies. Bitty decided to wait till Dex put his cookie dough in the fridge to chill before he dropped a bomb over Dex’s head.

“So, you and Nursey?”

Dex froze, hand still on the open refrigerator door. Bitty’s tone didn’t sound expectant, but open, like Dex could say whatever he felt comfortable saying and Bitty would accept it without pushing further. Bitty was always like that with Dex, always offering him an out in conversations. It’s what made talking to Bitty so comfortable.

He closed the refrigerator door and asked Bitty what to do next. He set him to work making the mixed berry filling for another pie. With his hands busy and mind on a task, it’d be easier to talk without overthinking it.

“I never know what to do with him. I try so hard to let it be easy, but I’m so afraid that I’ll be left again, and I don’t know if I can handle that. Yeah, I’d live through it, but how much would be left of me?”

A hand fell on Dex’s shoulder and gaze a light squeeze. Dex hadn’t noticed Bitty come over. “I don’t know what happened to you, but you can’t let every opportunity in life pass you by just because you’re scared. Nursey’s a nice boy and I doubt he’d hurt you like people from your past may have.”

Dex snorted at that. Poor Bitty didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“I had a best friend growing up,” Dex said, deciding to explain it all to Bitty. He wouldn’t understand, but he’d try to, and that could be enough. “He was sweet and funny and I felt so alive around him. We knew each other forever and falling in love was so easy I didn’t even notice it happening. He asked me out when we were like eleven. We had froyo dates and went to the aquarium with his parents and I was so sure we would be together forever.” He smiled at the thought. They were so happy then.

He must have gotten lost in thought, because he’s brought back into the moment by Bitty asking “What happened?”

This was the part that hurt to tell. The last time he told it was to Lardo, and a lot had changed since then. His version of the story back then painted Derek as a villain and had no consideration for his side of the story, because Dex was so angry at the time.

“In eighth grade, his parents needed to move for work and they sent him to boarding school. I didn’t ask him to stay because I thought he wanted to go, and he didn’t fight leaving because I didn’t ask him to stay. I broke up with him because I didn’t want to hold him back. We didn’t see or hear from each other again until four years later when we happened to go to the same school tour.”

He looked at Bitty as he finished the story, watching for the moment of realization to hit. It came with a quick widening of eyes, a slight parting of his lips into a soft “Oh.”

Bitty put down the pie he was assembling, this one a maple sugar crusted apple pie, and wrapped his arms around Dex’s shoulders. With Dex sitting and Bitty standing, it was surprisingly comfortable. “Oh, honey.”

“We’re both idiots,” Dex tried to laugh, but it cut into a sob halfway through.

They cried it out, then mopped up their faces and went back to the pies.

“What now? You boys are getting on much better than you used to.”

“I don’t know. I think he wants to get back together, and I think I want that too, but I’m afraid.”

“That boy lost you one time already. Do you really think, after all the work he’s put into getting you to trust him again, that he’d leave you without some kicking and screaming?”

Dex laughed, a bit wet from his previous tears. “Yeah, he’s gotten good at the kicking and screaming part.”


	12. Rewriting The Story: Part 9

Derek could leave him. He could walk away with his heart and not spare a backwards glance for Dex. He could say “I’ve changed my mind.”

But the thing is, anyone could do that.


	13. Rewriting The Story: Part 10

And Dex didn’t love just “anyone,” he loved Derek.


	14. Rewriting The Story: Part 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving break with the OCs!

Dex loved Derek, and he was finally willing to admit it to himself after weeks of them dancing around each other. When he left for Thanksgiving, he didn’t want to go because “home” was synonymous with “no Derek” and it didn’t comfort him anymore.

He went home anyway, of course, and he didn’t put up a fuss about it either. Derek got a quick hug goodbye, just like everyone else, and Dex didn’t let it show that he melted on the inside when Derek brought up his hand to rest on the back of Dex’s neck.

He went home, and he helped his mom cook, and they ate dinner at Aunt Susan’s house like always because it had a dining room and it was cheaper to buy in bulk and feed two families. Not that Aunt Susan minded, since Dex and his mom did the cooking in exchange for the borrowed space. Aunt Susan made the turkey, like she did every year, and Dex and his mom took care of the rest.

This year, along with everything else they usually made, Dex baked a pie. Was it professional quality? No, but with Bitty as his teacher it was damn close.

“Where did you get this?” Terry, the oldest of Aunt Susan's daughters, asked after taking her first bite of pie at the end of dinner. “I need like ten for the bake sale. We’d hit our goal easy with these. They can’t be from Jenny’s. Is it the new place by the docks?”

Her mile-a-minute conversation made Dex miss Chowder, whom he hadn’t spoken to since he left. He owed that boy a text when he had a free minute. And if he was sending texts anyway, he might as well text Bitty, and maybe Derek.

“Willie made it himself, dear,” Dex’s mom chipped in when Dex fell silent, lost in thought.

“Yeah, Bitty taught me in exchange for help in the kitchen.”

Terry turned to look at him in the seat beside hers, eyes bugged out. “You seriously made this? But it tastes so good!”

“Wow, thanks Terry.”

Her expression evened out and she reached out with one hand to grab Dex’s, which held a fork and was attempting to feed him a slice of the pie he did in fact make himself. “Can you make these for the bake sale? It’s on Monday so you can make them before you leave! Please?”

Dex eyed her warily. That was a lot of work she wanted him to do. It was for a good cause, though. When he was still in high school, he volunteered for the bake sale too. It was to raise money to provide food and blankets for the homeless during the harshest part of winter since there wasn’t enough room in the local shelter.

“If I do all the baking, can you pay for the groceries?”

“If I buy extra groceries, do I get a pie?”

“I will make as many pies as there are groceries for. But I can also make other stuff, too, if you want. I can make a few different pies, cookies, even a peach cobbler but Bitty would kill me if I didn’t use fresh Georgia peaches for it.”

“You talk about this Bitty boy a lot. Is he someone special?” Dex’s mom asked from her spot across the table, leaning forward with her chin propped on her hand.

Dex blushed redder than the cherry pie, which might have been a health concern if he wasn’t this shade so often. “No, mom. He’s the one dating Jack Zimmermann, our old captain. He’s one of my best friends.”

Dex’s mom leaned back in her chair. “I see.” She picked up her fork and stabbed it into the pie, breaking off a bite-sized piece. “I’m sure you’ll meet a nice boy soon.”

“I already have,” Dex mumbled, facing down at his pie slice, not even thinking. When he realized what he said, how they’d take it, his head whipped up to look at the faces of everyone at the table.

Even the twins, Aunt Susan’s youngest daughters at ten years old, stared at him.

“Oh, Willie.”

“That’s not what I meant, mom,” Dex said, lowering his head back down. He wasn’t throwing himself a pity party this time, not anymore. He was done with that. But how were they to know that? They had no idea he’d talked to Derek at all in the past six years, let alone gone to school and shared a room with him. He hadn’t wanted them to know.

Dex picked up his plate and moved it in front of Terry, who was already halfway through her slice of pie. “Here. I’ll get started on dishes.”

They let him go. He needed time, they knew. Pushing him would do no good.

Dex went to the kitchen and pulled his phone out of his pocket the moment the door closed behind him.

“Please answer,” he mumbled anxiously, clicking on a number in his contacts.

“Dex, darlin’, what’re you doing calling on Thanksgiving? Shouldn’t you be at dinner right about now?”

“It’s not peach season, is it, Bitty?” His words were rushed, more of an exhale than a statement, but he needed to focus on something. Anything. His phone was warm from being in his pocket and he couldn’t really feel it.

While Bitty spoke, Dex moved over to the freezer and grabbed a bag of peas. Why did everyone have a bag of peas in their freezer? Were emergency peas a real thing?

“No, Dex, peaches are a summer fruit. Are you okay?”

“My cousin asked me to make pies for a bake sale and I offered to make other stuff,” Dex said all in one puff as he sat down at the kitchen table with the peas in one hand and the phone in the other. At least he could feel the peas. “But I told her I couldn’t make peach cobbler because you’d kill me if I used anything but fresh Georgia peaches. No canned peaches in your pies, right Bitty?”

“Right,” Bitty said slowly. Or maybe it just seemed slow to Dex; he couldn’t tell. “My moo-maw would never allow canned peaches in her kitchen and they sure aren’t allowed in mine. Did your cousin ask you to use canned peaches?”

“No, my mom said I’d meet a cute boy soon and I said I already have and they obviously thought I meant Derek but not Derek now, Derek when we were kids, because they don’t know we’re at the same school and on the same team and in the same room.”

“Slow down, Dex,” Bitty ordered from the other side, firm but not unkind. Right, this was his captain. Always listen to your captain.

He needed to focus on the peas. As long as he still felt the peas, he’d be okay. But his hand was going numb from the cold so he switched them with the phone.

“Talk to me slowly, Dex. Explain it so I can understand. Your family doesn’t know that Nursey’s on your team?”

Dex shook his head before realizing Bitty couldn’t see. “They don’t have time to visit because of work, and we can’t afford to get the games on the tv, so they just look up the scores online. They only really know what I tell them.”

“And you didn’t tell them about Nursey?” Bitty asked softly, unaccusatory. Why did Dex feel like he was being accused of something?

Maybe he was accusing himself. Of lying to his family, or at least omitting the truth. They were probably so worried about him. He hoped they couldn’t hear him on the phone.

“No, I didn’t.” The peas were sweating, going soft from the heat of his hands. He should trade them for something else in the freezer or they’d get ruined. Dex stood and went to dig through the freezer to find something else. Tucked into the corner of the freezer door was an icepack. Perfect.

“That’s okay, dear. You don’t need to tell them anything, especially if you’re not ready. Your family loves you no matter what.”

Dex was thankful for his family because Bitty was right; his family loved him no matter what. They would continue to love him no matter what, because that’s who they were. The Poindexters were people that loved and loved and that well never ran out. Even if they wanted it to.

Dex’s family still loved Dex, and Dex still loved Derek, and these were simple facts.

Dex could work with facts.


	15. Rewriting The Story: Part 12

A List Of Facts (written by William J Poindexter in an old geometry notebook while laying in his childhood bedroom):

-Willie was in love with D. Dex is in love with Derek. These facts, though similar, are not the same.

-Dex’s family loves him. They will continue to love him even if Dex decides to be with Derek.

-Dex wants to be with Derek.

-Writing in third person is fucking weird.


	16. Rewriting The Story: Part 13

A List of Uncertainties (written by William J Poindexter on a crumpled napkin he found in his pocket while sitting on his mom’s front porch):

-Derek may or may not be in love with Dex.


	17. Rewriting The Story: Part 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winter break fluff time!

This time, Dex was not the first one to return to the Haus.

It was Bitty, greeting him with open arms and a warm pie.

Dex returned the greeting with a hearty laugh and a pie of his own.

“I baked so many for the bake sale and Terry insisted I take one back with me even though I promised there’d be pie waiting.”

Bitty took the pie, cold from the drive, from Dex’s hand with a smile and set it on the counter with another pie. “That’s very sweet of her. I’ll heat it right up when this next one’s out. Now go get into something warm before you catch a cold!” Bitty swatted at Dex’s jacket, which was damp from the falling snow, but there was no force behind it.

“Thanks, Bitty. Love you!” Dex shouted, already heading to the stairs.

Just barely, Dex heard Bitty mumble “You sweet boy.”

Dex loved Bitty. He was one of Dex’s best friends. He trusted him to tell him whatever he needed to near, not what he wanted to hear. Bitty was honesty and a warm plate of pie.

He hoped Bitty liked the pie.

_X_

Derek came tumbling in about an hour later. He didn’t literally tumble in this time, thankfully, since he was carrying two plates of pie. One Dex recognized as his own, one Dex recognized as his favorite. He was not carrying anything else.

“Hey Will!”

Derek’s smile was going to be the death of Dex. If it wasn’t, Dex would be surprised.

“Hey, Derek. Where are your bags?”

Derek crossed the room to get to Dex at his desk and put a plate down on the cleared corner. He put the other slice on his own desk. “They’re downstairs, but pie is more important. Bitty saved me a slice of this one. He said you made it.”

“I did.”

“Why do you always make Bitty pies but not me?” Derek asked, pouting, but he only seemed to be partly serious if the upward twitch of his lips were any indication.

“Because Bitty deserves pie and you don’t,” he chirped.

“Fine. I’ll take that pie back from you, then.” Derek reached over Dex to steal his pie plate, grabbing it and moving it to his desk with the other slice.

“Go ahead, I can just make more.” He couldn’t make it as good as Bitty could, but Dex had no problem making himself a pie.

Dex held back a laugh when the pie plate reappeared on his desk.

“You win this time,” Derek mumbled, pulling his arm back to his side. “But just this time!”

The pie tasted unusually sweet. Bitty must’ve added too much sugar.

(He would never.)

_X_

They played hockey, Dex more than the rest. He maintained his extra ice time despite the finals crunch. He attended physical therapy and Derek always asked how it went afterwards, free of judgement, genuinely curious. They studied and held hands under library tables and Dex handed in his final exam of the semester with confidence. He worked hard; his scholarship was safe.

Saying goodbye to the team was always hard.

Chowder made him promise to Skype him. “Don’t worry, Chow, I will,” Dex said fondly, returning his hug with just as much intensity. “Can’t leave by best friend hanging.” When Chow replied with “Awww Dex, I love you!” Dex said it back.

Bitty offered to send Dex some recipes to try out over the break. “That’d be great,” Dex said, hugging Bitty much more gently even though he was just as strong as the rest. “Get home safe, Bitty. Love you.”

He and Derek were the last to go.

Derek was in the kitchen doing dishes, as he tended to do. Dex was cleaning up the counters and the final mess of the year. The team should’ve been more considerate before they left, but it was more the other team members filing through than the ones living in the Haus that made the mess.

“So…” Derek said awkwardly, dishwater up to his elbows.

“Yes?” He was being weird. Why was he being weird? Did Dex do something?

“You are the soft glow of summer fading into the fall,” Derek said, voice crisp and clear as if reading from a book. Dex heard him like this often, reciting poetry for his schoolwork. But now there was no schoolwork to be done, and he as waxing poetic anyay. “I am a leaf, crisping, fading, having lived a beautiful life through you.”

“It’s winter, Derek. Fall’s long gone,” Dex chirped. If Derek was going to recite poetry, it should at least be seasonally correct.

“Fine,” he mumbled. “That’s the last time I write poetry about you.”

And, “Oh.” Because Dex thought it was just words from a book, a poem he’d memorized for class that randomly came to mind. He hadn’t realized it was for him. It was his. “You wrote that?”

“About you, yes.”

“Is it the only one?” Dex asked, because he had to. He had never been one for curiosity but he was now.

“I have written volumes of you, an effigy of pages and ink that could never reflect your flame. You, a candle, could only ever burn yourself. I, a fool, reduced you to ashes then rewrote the pieces.”

Dex didn’t know what to say to that, aside from the obvious. “...I’ll take that as a yes.”

Derek burst with a laugh and Dex basked in the sound of it.

If Dex was a flame, Derek was the crash of ocean waves. Not that he’d tell him, of course; poetry just wasn’t his style.

“They’re nice, Derek,” Dex told him earnestly. His words were beautiful.They were sad, too, though, and Dex didn’t want them to be. “They sound sad, though. Maybe we should write a happier story.”

Derek didn’t reply. Dex waited, gave him plenty of time to process and think of something to say, but he didn’t.

If he didn’t want a happy story, that was okay.

Dex moved to put the rag he was using to wipe the counters next to the sink, where he usually put it. He snuck a peek at Derek’s face, just a small peek, because he was worried. Derek was never this quiet.

Derek must have been blushing pretty hard for it to show so boldly on his cheeks, especially after a few minutes. His lips were in a wide smile, too wide, as if he couldn’t control it. If his face were any less pretty, it would have been a terrifying expression of hysteria.

“Are you okay, Derek?” Dex asked, gently pressing a hand to the small of Derek’s back.

The smile loosened up, transforming into a small grin. Softer. “Yeah, Will. I’m great, actually.”

Dex wanted them to be happy. Derek was happy that Dex wanted them to be happy. These were facts. This was progress.

“What are your holiday plans?” Dex asked, sitting down at the table. Derek had a mountain of dishes to work through so Dex might as well keep him company.

“My moms are off on a business trip so I’ll probably just roam around New York, maybe catch a Broadway show or two.”

This took a moment to process. His moms were away. Gone. Not home when he would be. “You’re gonna be home alone for break?” Dex asked, voice heartbroken. He knew they didn’t celebrate any holidays, but winter break was about a month long. That’s a long time to be alone.

“Yeah,” Derek said, voice even and Dex knew what was coming, felt it like a train that couldn’t brake fast enough. “It’s-”

“It’s chill,” Dex finished for him, “is exactly what you say when it’s not. You said I hated being alone. I don’t recall you being any better.”

Dex stood from his chair.

“Will-”

“I will be right back,” Dex said before exiting the kitchen and going up to their shared room.

Dex had regrets.

He knew that, if he let Derek be home alone for winter break, it would become one.

His mom picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, honey! When are you going to be home?”

“Hi, mom. I’m driving up tomorrow. One of my teammates is going home to an empty house because his parents are away and I was wondering if he could stay with us during break instead?”

“Of course, honey! Which teammate is it?”

“Derek Nurse.”

“Derek….. Oh, honey.”

She sounded just like Bitty.

“Willie, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“He’s gonna be alone, mom,” Dex said desperately. The thought of Derek in a house all alone for so long, it made Dex wonder if this was how Derek felt when he realized Dex was alone at the Haus. “I can’t leave him to hurt like that.”

“He left you to hurt.” Her words were brutal, and she probably thought them to be true.

“No, mom. We left each other to hurt.”

This was their truth. Willie and D were both at fault. There was no villain, no bigger evil. No fingers could be pointed or blame taken.

“Do you trust him?”

He didn’t.

“I want to. Can’t that be enough, just this once?”

She sighed. “Be careful, Willie. That boy’s dangerous.”

“No more than I am.”

_X_

Dex was a fool. A total dumbass. One hundred percent a jelly-brained disaster.

It was a fact.

This fact was the reason why Dex trugded down the stairs and yelled, “You’re coming home with me, Nurse,” into the kitchen without waiting for a reply. He simply walked away, back up the stairs to pack.

There wasn’t much to pack. The winter portion of his measly closet. His laptop and charger cables. His comforter, because fuck if he was gonna spend forty bucks on a second one when he could just cart this one around.

The weather app on his phone forecasted mild weather, a small blessing.

Derek came up a few minutes later, shirt sopping wet in the middle where he splashed it with dishwater. Dex kept his eyes on his phone, texting Terry a grocery list of what to have waiting for him if she expected pie promptly.

“Hey, what’d you say downstairs? I think I heard wrong.”

“You’re coming home with me for winter break.”

Something crashed and Dex kept his eyes glued to his phone. He wouldn’t look. “...what?”

“I’m not leaving you in New York by yourself for a month. You’d probably burn your house down in a week,” Dex said, his confidence fading quickly. He tried not to sound as scared as he felt, but that plan died quickly. “Do you not want to? Because you don’t actually have to. It’s more of an invitation than a demand, I swear.”

If Derek didn’t want him, that was okay.

A shadow fell over Dex so he looked up from his phone, not moving from where he sat on his bunk. Derek’s gaze was soft, or hard, and confused, or distraught. It was too many things and none of them and Dex suddenly wished he understood poetry because then maybe he could decipher the meaning behind Derek’s gaze.

“You’re inviting me home with you?” he asked, sounding as if he didn’t believe it.

“Yeah, I am.” Dex put down the phone beside him and swung his legs over the side of the bed so he sat up at the edge. He wondered what Derek saw, looking at him.

“But your mom-”

“Loves me and trusts me to make my own decisions. So should she set an extra place for dinner tomorrow or not?”

Derek cautiously reached out a hand, slow, as if waiting for Dex to pull away. As if he thought Dex would want to. “You actually want me there?”

Dex leaned forward to close the inches between his cheek and Derek’s hand. The skin there was calloused, from gripping hockey sticks and pens and foolish hopes. “I don’t want you home alone all break.”

“But do you want me there?”

Dex grabbed Derek’s other hand and brought it up to Dex’s other cheek, so that Derek was cupping Dex’s face. It was an intimate moment of vulnerability and unspoken hopes that Dex was proud of himself for initiating. So of course he had to ruin it. “Metaphor. Metaphor. Poetic shit. Shut up and pack your crap.” He tightened his grip on Derek’s hands for just a moment, then dropped his hands so Derek could let go.

Derek did not let go.

Derek leaned down, dipping his head so it didn’t hit the bedframe, crowding Dex’s space. His hands were still on Dex’s face, the touch gentle. He was so painfully close, Dex could smell Derek’s last slice of pie on his breath.

Their noses touched.

Then Derek rested his forehead on Dex’s and breathed out a small laugh. “Your mom’s going to kill me.”

Dex snorted, loud and happy. “Don’t worry, we have a first aid kit.”

_X_

They left the next day after lunch (which Dex made to spare the Haus from disaster, but Derek did dishes as usual). Dex packed most of their belongings into the bed of his truck wrapped in a tarp in case the weather took a turn for the worse. Anything that couldn’t handle getting wet was stuck in the front with them.

Dex shoved his and Derek’s backpacks, both stuffed with electronics, in the center of the bench then tossed his folded comforter at Derek, who was already situated in the passenger seat. “You’re gonna have to hold onto this, it can’t go in the back.”

Derek unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around himself with a cute grin. “Cozy.”

Dammit, he was too cute.

Dex buckled himself in and started the drive home.

The first chunk of the drive went fine. Derek snoozed in the passenger seat and Dex hummed along to whatever music his shitty radio filtered through. It was peaceful.

Then the ache set in. On its own, the ache in his hands wasn’t usually that bad. Depending on what he was doing, Dex could work through it. But it wasn’t safe for him to drive with aching hands, especially when the ache was starting to turn into a stab.

He drove slowly in the right lane until they reached the next rest stop a few minutes later, and he parked the car.

Derek stirred in his seat. “We there already?”

“Nah, just taking a pit stop,” Dex said, trying to keep his voice steady. Driving when his hands were acting up always made his anxiety spike. He needed to call his mom.

“Hi, honey! Are you boys on your way?”

“We’re at a rest stop about halfway. I needed to take a break. I just wanted to let you know in case we’re late.”

“Do you need one of us to come get you? Uncle Joe is just sitting on his bum reading the paper with nothing better to do.”

He chuckled, releasing some of the tension from his shoulders. “Nah, mom. I’ll probably be fine in a few. I’ll let you know when we’re back on the road.”

“Okay, but let me know if you change your mind. I love you!”

“Love you too, mom. Bye.”

Dex hung up the phone and rested his head on the steering wheel, suddenly exhausted.

“Do you need me to drive?”

Dex’s head shot up and he turned to stare at Derek, whom he’d forgotten was there. “What?”

“I can drive, if you want.”

“No thanks,” Dex said, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine in a few. Go get something gross from the Starbucks and we’ll leave when you get back.”

Derek shot Dex straight through the heart with a charming smile. “You’re gross.”

Very charming.

While Derek was gone, Dex drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He couldn’t do much aside from hope his hands would settle down. Whether or not he fidgeted nervously made no difference.

Thankfully, Dex’s hands were good to go when Derek shimmied back into the truck and handed him an ominously colorful freezing cold drink.

“Something gross, as per your request!” Derek cheered, swapping the other cup into his left hand so he could close the car door.

“What is this?”

“It is a unicorn frappucino.” Derek rearranged Dex’s comforter on his lap then made grabby hands for the cup. Dex handed it over then Derek shoved the other cup, much warmer, into Dex’s empty hand. “That’s for me. Yours is a white hot chocolate because I respect your decision to be boring.”

“I’m sorry I like to keep my frosting on cakes,” Dex chirped back, though it was a bit weak. Derek made him weak, but now it was in a good way.

“How are your hands?”

“They’re okay now.” Dex shoved one in Derek’s face. “See? Fine.”

Chapped lips pressed against Dex’s knuckles and oh, that was a kiss.

Dex nearly dropped his drink.

But he didn’t.

That would have been embarrassing.

“You’ll have to hold this for me,” Dex breathed out, a little shaken. A lot shaken. “No cup holders.”

“Shouldn’t you drink some before we leave?” Derek asked, taking the cup anyway.

“Too hot. I’d burn my tongue.”

“But then I could kiss it better.”

Dex froze, hand still midair where it previously held the cup. “Holy fuck, Nurse.”

“Too much?” Derek asked sheepishly.

Dex couldn’t even look at him. If he did, his face would burn so bright that it’d explode. “Too much,” he muttered to the steering wheel.

“But not bad?” Derek asked hopefully.

“Not bad at all.”

_X_

They arrived at the Poindexter home only about half an hour late, which wasn’t so bad. The pie would need to bake during dinner, but that wasn’t a problem. They could serve it fresh out of the oven with a scoop of icecream on top.

Dex’s drink was cold by the time he took a sip, parked outside the house, but it still tasted sweet. He could heat it up and take sips while making the pie.

“I remember it being bigger,” Derek said, voice fond as he looked out the windshield at a home he hadn’t visited in years.

“Well, you haven’t been here since you were 5’2. We got bigger, but the house stayed the same.” A lot more stayed the same than just the house, but Dex didn’t think that needed saying.

“Should I wait in the car so you can talk to your mom first?”

“Nah, I wanna be there to see her chew you out. Maybe film it and send it to Bitty.”

Derek pressed his shoulder into Dex’s, too gentle to be a real shove. “Can he fine us for fighting if we’re not at the Haus?”

“Don’t know, but I’m sure we’re about to find out.” Dex threw open his door and slammed it shut behind him. He’d get their stuff later. “We’re home!”

A flurry of red on red on red burst out the front door and ran full-speed at Dex. Years of experience getting shoved around on the ice barely kept him upright when 5’6 160 pounds of high school wrestler barrelled at him.

“Hey Willie!” Terry shouted into the chest of Dex’s coat. “Ready to bake some pie?”

“Yes, Terry, I am ready to bake pie.” He sighed but returned the hug. She gave the best hugs out of the whole family, not that Dex would ever let anyone know that for fear of being accused of picking favorites.

Terry pulled back and Dex could feel her glaring over his shoulder. She tightened her grip around Dex, pulling a laugh out of him. “Hello, Nurse.”

“Hi, Terry…” Derek mumbled, all chill and confidence gone. Uncharacteristically insecure.

This was going to be a long month.

“Play nice, Terry, or no pie.”

“How nice do I have to be?” she grumbled.

“Civil. No pranks. No messing with his food.” Dex paused to think. He should at least let her have some fun. “Chirps are allowed, but keep them clean.”

“Deal.” She squeezed Dex one more time then let go. “Time to grab your stuff.”

The three of them worked together to bring the boys’ stuff in, piling it into the front hall, leaving hardly any space to walk.

“All yours from here,” Terry said, dropping the bags she held and plopping onto the livingroom couch next to Uncle Joe.

“Hey Willie. Hey not-Willie,” Uncle Joe greeted without looking up from his newspaper. Dex would have been embarrassed if Derek didn’t already know what he was like.

“Hey Uncle Joe.”

“Hello, sir.”

Dex snorted. As a kid, Derek used to always greet him with “Hey Unjoe!”

Finally, Uncle Joe lowered his newspaper to reveal his face, which Dex hadn’t expected he’d do. “Aren’t you that Nurse boy?” he asked, tone accusatory.

“Yes, sir.”

“Hm. Glad you came to your senses. Willie’s a good boy.”

“Yes, he is, sir.

Uncle Joe raised the paper again, cutting off the boys’ view of his face and any further conversation.

“Where’s mom?” Dex asked, more towards Terry than Uncle Joe.

“Basement doing laundry. She’ll be up in a minute. Might as well take your bags up while you wait.”

Dex put his drink down in the kitchen then grabbed his bags, including the ones Terry put down, and led Derek up to his room.

Not that Derek needed to be led, because when Dex paused at the top of the stairs to rearrange the bags in his hands, Derek kept going right to Dex’s door and let himself inside.

When Dex caught up, Derek stood in the middle of the room, bags dropped by his feet, tears running down his face.

Dex dropped his bags inside the doorway, closed the door behind him, and rushed to Derek’s side. He put one hand on each of Derek’s cheeks and used his thumbs to wipe away the tears. “What’s wrong?”

He had never seen Derek less chill than in that moment. Sobbing, snot and tears all over his face, Derek brought his arms up around Dex’s torso and held him tight. “I didn’t think I’d be able to come back,” Derek choked through his tears. “I never wanted to go, and I didn’t think I’d be allowed to come back.”

How could Dex not cry at that?

Dex was glad they removed their coats at the door, because snotty shirts were a lot easier to swap out and wash. They traded their tees for fresh ones from their bags, splashed their faces with water at the bathroom sink, and went downstairs to face Dex’s mom.

Sharon Poindexter was not typically a scary woman. She taught cooking classes with the patience of the oldest of four siblings. She was kind and fair, a woman that never once said a mean word about anyone that didn’t deserve it. At 5’2, she was tiny and everyone contributed her son’s height to his father. Every sharp angle of Dex’s was learned through experiencing life, not through modeling after his mother.

Sharon Poindexter was scary in the same way Eric Bittle was. They were polite to the point of discomfort, with “kill them with kindness” attitudes. They were small and unassuming but carried themselves with the confidence of someone that would drop gloves in a fight against King Kong without hesitation.

Dex loved his mom, especially with the way she was intimidating Derek. Not that he wanted Derek to be uncomfortable, because he didn’t, but watching him squirm a bit was entertaining.

“Hello boys!” Sharon greeted with a warm smile as they entered the kitchen. She wrapped her arms tight around her son, squishing him in a hug as strong as any athlete’s. She then pulled away and, as a greeting for Derek, gave him a loud, probably harder than necessary pat on the cheek. “Did you put your bags upstairs already, Willie?”

“Yes mom.”

“And what about you?” she asked Derek, smile icy. Poor derek. “What should I be calling you?”

Derek fidgeted and Dex kinda felt bad. “Derek is fine, maam.”

Sharon raised her brows questioningly but kept the ice smile on her face. “Maam? Bless your heart.”

Oh fuck. Derek was screwed.

“Derek, why don’t you go watch tv with Terry? I believe my son has a pie to help me bake.”

“Sure. I’ll be in the livingroom if you need me.”

Derek scurried out into the livingroom, only to be greeted by chirping from Terry.

“You’re an idiot, Willie.”

“We’re both idiots, mom.”

“You’re the bigger idiot.”

Dex sighed. Being called a bigger idiot than Derek by his mom meant a lot. “Why am I the bigger idiot, mom?”

“Because you didn’t tell me about him being at Samwell sooner. Maybe then I could’ve talked you out of this. But it’s a bit too late for that now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to date that boy again, aren’t you?”

“Probably.”

“Make sure you communicate this time.”

“Yes, mom.”

“Good. Now come make your pie.”

_X_

Dinner was awkward. Uncle Joe and Terry took the couch and Sharon took the armchair, so Derek and Dex were relegated to the floor. When Dex said his mom would set an extra place for Derek for dinner, it was a joke because there wasn’t anywhere to set places in the first place.

“You boys could always eat in the kitchen,” Sharon said from her perch, knowing full well Dex wouldn’t choose to miss out on family dinner movie time.

“And miss rewatching Brother Bear for the thousandth time?” he asked, voice full of drama. “Never!”

“Actually, mister sass, Terry picked up Jumanji.”

“Variety is the spice of life,” Terry explained with jazz-hands and a dead expression.

Dex loved his dramatic, sassy family.

Honestly, knowing what Derek’s mothers were like, Dex thought that maybe Derek’s eccentric personality came more from Dex’s family. If he weren’t so uncomfortable due to the circumstances, he would have fit right in with his flailing gesticulation and loud excitement.

But he was being an awkward weirdo instead and quietly eating his food. Much less interesting, and therefore in need of more attention.

“Derek, what do you think of the food?”

“It’s delicious. Thank you.”

“Nurse, go grab me a beer.”

“Sure.”

“Willie, Nurse, take our dishes since you aren’t doing anything better.”

“Terry, why can’t you do it?” Dex asked, already pushing himself up from the ground. He’d do it, but not before giving her shit.

“I’m comfy and you limited my bullying privileges.”

Dex took her plate and watched Derek grab everyone else’s before walking into the kitchen. Derek followed him in, breathing a sigh of relief to be out of there.

“Having fun yet?”

Derek shrugged but smiled. “Better than being alone in New York.”

“I’d hope-”

Dex was cut off by the sound of a plate crashing to the ground and shattering.

Fucking fuck.

“Is everything okay in there?” Sharon yelled from her chair in the living room.

“Dropped a plate!” Dex shouted, bending to pick up the pieces with a shaky hand.

Footsteps approached the kitchen and Dex sighed; his mom really didn’t need to come check on them.

“Willie, honey, I’ll do it,” she said, grabbing his hand and trying to take the glass shards he collected.

“I can do it, mom,” he insisted, pulling his hand away. He hated when she babied him like this. “It’s fine. You’re missing the movie.”

Sharon sighed but stepped back. She sent Derek a pointed look. “You help him clean this up.”

“Yes, maam!” he squeaked.

Dex breathed a sigh of relief when she walked away and returned to her seat in the living room. “I know she loves me, but I hate when she does that. I feel like she thinks I can’t take care of myself. I have trouble, yeah, but I can do things on my own, and when I can’t I know how to ask for help. She doesn’t even give me a chance to try to do things on my own.” The words fell out of him in a burst as he picked up glass shards, leaving him feeling winded at the end of it.

“Have you told her you feel that way?”

He looked up to read Derek’s face, the honest concern in his eyes. “How am I supposed to tell my mom that the way she loves me is wrong?”

“Well, when you word it like that it sounds bad.”

“That’s how it feels. And that’s why I don’t talk about it with people; because people tend to do the same thing she does.”

A gentle touch brushed against Dex’s cheek and he looked up as Derek’s hand retracted.

“I don’t do that, do I?”

Dex grabbed the hand and pulled it back to his cheek, holding it close and basking in the warmth of it. “No, Derek. You treat me exactly how I want you to.”

“Exactly how you want me to?” he chirped, voice warm like his spreading smile. “No constructive criticism?”

“I guess there’s a thing or two you can change.” Dex’s gaze traveled down to Derek’s lips, chapped and raw from being anxiously chewed. He was so dangerously close. He leaned in, painfully, anxiously slow. The space between them closed by millimeters.

A knock on the kitchen doorway knocked Dex back into reality and he leaned back quickly, haphazardly enough to fall back on his ass. He wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up with a bruise.

“You’re missing the end of the movie, boys,” Sharon said, leaning on the doorframe. “You’ll have plenty of time to flirt later. Movie time is now.”

She swept away and left the boys in an awkward silence.

“I don’t think she was this intimidating when we were the same height,” Derek said after a tense moment. He busied his hands cleaning up the shattered plate that Dex had forgotten. “Why is she so much more intimidating now?”

“Because now you know she’ll gladly climb up on a chair to slap you if she feels the need to,” Dex answered with the confidence of someone who had seen it happen.

Dex left Derek to clean up the plate on his own. It wasn’t a two person task anyway and he was missing the movie. He tossed himself into Terry’s lap on the couch and watched a mansion be engulfed in jungle rain.

_X_

After the movie, Sharon went to bed and Uncle Joe drove Terry home. Dex and Derek were left to do dishes and clean up the kitchen. Derek insisted on doing the dishes, “I always do them anyway,” so Dex cleaned up the kitchen. They made quick work of the chores and headed upstairs. The light to Sharon’s room was off; she was already in bed and the boys were the only people left awake in the house.

“You can go get ready first.”

While Derek occupied the bathroom, Dex pulled a stack of spare blankets and pillows from the closet. Each blanket was threadbare, but together they would suffice as a makeshift bed. He had just finished arranging them on the floor when Derek came in.

Dex walked over to his dresser and pulled out some pajamas. “You get the bed,” he said into the bottom drawer.

“What? No, it’s your bed.”

“Not anymore.” He clutched his pajamas to his chest and walked towards the bedroom door, watching Derek, who stood in the middle of the small room, carefully. “You’re the guest, so you get the bed. Be in it when I get back.”

“Are you inviting me to bed, William?”

Dex didn’t look back; he didn’t want Derek to see the vicious blush taking over his face. “Maybe I am.”

Then he rushed out to splash cold water on his face because holy shit what was he doing???

He nearly kissed Derek in the kitchen earlier. And he was flirting. This was direct, with much clearer intention than their simple hand-holding. He was trying to turn this something uncertain between them into something important.

Dex returned to his room to find Derek Nurse snuggled into the floor blankets with a smug grin on his stupid, gorgeous face.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to sleep.”

“You’re supposed to sleep in the bed, Nurse.”

“Nope, your bed is yours. I get this nice comfy floor fortress.”

Dex shuffled around the hockey player sized mound to toss his dirty clothes in the hamper and plug in his phone. “You’re not sleeping on the floor.”

“You can’t stop me.”

Derek was right; Dex couldn’t stop him. If he tried to pick Derek up and throw him onto the bed, they would undoubtedly break something because the space was small. So Dex couldn’t stop Derek from sleeping on the floor.

But Derek couldn’t stop Dex from taking the floor, either.

Dex pulled the comforter from the bed and dived.

Derek yelped when Dex flopped down beside him in the tiny floor space. It wasn’t big enough for them both, but Dex was stubborn so he would make it work. He wiggled, forming a blanket burrito with the comforter, and settled in on his side flush against the side of the bed so that he wasn’t basically on top of Derek.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to sleep,” Dex said, echoing Derek’s sass from earlier.

“You’re supposed to be on the bed!”

“You can’t make me. I will sleep on this floor in my nice blanket burrito and you can’t stop me.”

Would it be comfortable? No. It was going to be an awful nights sleep. But Dex would have the satisfaction of getting the last word in this argument. He didn’t get what he wanted but neither did Derek.

“You’re so stubborn,” Derek mumbled after a few minutes, seemingly nearly asleep.

“Always have been, always will be.”

_X_

Dex woke up in the middle of the night to a sharp kick in the thigh. His blanket burrito had fallen and tangled in a way that left his upper body uncovered and his lower body incapable of movement, yet it still somehow managed to loop around and cover his face. Dex was still flush against the bed frame, but now he laid on his back and was being smushed into the frame by Derek on his other side.

He no longer felt like he was winning; he felt like a dumbass for thinking he could get some decent sleep while smushed into the tiny space with Derek Nurse.

They weren’t even smushed together in a nice way! At least if they were cuddling it’d be sweet even if it wasn’t totally comfortable.

Whatever. Dex untangled and readjusted his blanket burrito then fell back asleep.

_X_

Dex woke up feeling like shit. From the way Derek groaned and creaked when he awoke, Dex could assume the same for him.

“You’re taking the bed tonight,” Derek insisted through a yawn. Voice insistent, he said, “I’ll take the bed tomorrow if it makes you feel better. But we can’t both fit on the floor.”

Dex agreed this time without putting up a fight.

They had a quiet day in watching old DVDs while Dex’s mom was off at work, then when Sharon came home Dex helped her cook and the three ate dinner together while watching Caroline. This time, they all got to sit on furniture. Sharon was still frosty but it was nice nonetheless.

Then they faced the bed situation again.

“You sure you don’t want the bed tonight?”

Instead of answering, Derek flopped down onto the floor bed made of blankets.

“Okay then. Goodnight, Derek.”

“Gnight, Will. Sweet dreams.”

_X_

The next morning, the first thing Dex said to Derek was, “You are sleeping in this bed tonight.”

Derek, tired and hazy, just nodded his head. “Yes sure right. Bed.”

When night came, Derek almost got into the floor bed, but Dex glared at him and said “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Derek took the bed.

“Good,” Dex mumbled, dropping himself onto the floor bed and adjusting to its weird lumpiness. How Derek slept on this two nights in a row without complaint Dex couldn’t understand. How Dex was supposed to sleep on this for the rest of break Dex also didn’t understand. If anything, maybe he could take the couch instead, though it wasn’t that much more comfortable.

_X_

Dex woke up in the middle of the night again to a kick, which made no sense since Dex was sleeping alone on the floor.

He understood when Derek toppled over him on the floor, pinning him down.

Derek had gotten out of bed and tripped on Dex while on his way to the door. Classic Nursey.

“Shit!” Derek exclaimed far too loudly for the middle of the night as he tried to scramble off Dex. “Sorry!”

All Derek managed to do was keep kicking and prodding, too tired and clumsy to actually get up.

Dex wrapped his arms around Derek’s back and pulled him flush to his chest, then rolled to the side so that Derek was next to the door. Dex released. “Try not to trip on me coming back in.”

Derek tripped on Dex coming back in.

“Holy fuck, Nurse,” Dex grumbled into his pillow. How many bruises was he going to wake up with? Terry was going to have a hell of a time chirping him for them.

To save himself, Dex stood and got out of the way till Derek was tucked safely into bed.

They waited till morning to address the problem. Dex woke up grumpy and sore on the floor, his blanket burrito binding the top half of his body and leaving his legs cold and bare. Derek woke up looking perfectly well rested, at least in Dex’s eyes.

“Good morning,” Derek grumbled, rolling to the edge of the bed to look at Dex on the floor. How did he manage to look so pretty this early? He had goop in his eyes and dried drool around his mouth, but his eyes were bright and his smile fond. “How’d you sleep?”

“Horribly. Some asshole kept tripping on me,” he chirped lazily, basking in the faint rays of sunlight that filtered in through the blinds.

Derek cringed. “Sorry.”

“S’okay. Just be more careful next time. I already have so many bruises.”

“Okay, so hear me out.” Not the most delicate way to start a conversation, especially with a person with an anxiety disorder, but okay. “It’s not safe for me to sleep on the bed and you on the floor, so you should sleep on the bed.”

Dex groaned. Not this again. “No, Derek, you keep the bed. I can go sleep on the couch.”

Derek sat up in a shot, lips in a small frown. “I’m not kicking you out of your own room! I don’t think you can even fit on that couch.”

“You can argue with me all you want, but you’re sleeping in that bed.” Dex sat up and untangled himself from his blankets. “End of story. You get the bed.”

When Derek didn’t argue, Dex breathed a sigh of relief; it was early and he didn’t have the energy to fight so early. He got out of the makeshift bed to start his day.

“We could share the bed?”

Dex almost didn’t hear him with how soft his voice was, how tentative. As far as Dex knew, Derek only used this voice with him. He’d never heard Derek use it when they weren’t alone. It made Dex stop and turn to face him.

Derek was sitting up, legs tossed over the edge of the bed. At some point in the night he shed his sweatpants to sleep in just boxers and a tee. His face was tilted down, but not so much that Dex couldn’t see a faint pink tint on his cheeks.

“If you’re not comfortable sharing the bed it’s chill,” they both cringed, “but like I’m okay with it if you are.”

The proposition made Dex’s heart flutter like an old note sheet tossed into the air on the last day of school. A needless mess.

Bedsharing meant sleeping in close proximity, like when they slept on the floor, except hopefully more comfortable. The bed was bigger than the cleared space on the floor, but only by a small amount. If they both managed to climb into Dex’s bed, it would be a tight fit. Accidentally (or purposefully) cuddling type of close. Could Dex’s feeble gay heart handle that?

They hadn’t been in close quarters like that since they were in middle school.

“Just like when we were kids?” he joked with an awkward laugh.

Derek looked up, the small fond smile back on his lips. “I was hoping things would be different this time around, but yeah.”

He wasn’t just talking about cuddling and now this conversation had a lot more weight than it did a moment before.

When did being an adult become less scary than being a child?

When did the possibility of Derek staying become worth the possible heartbreak of Derek leaving?

Derek Malik Nurse was a terrifying force that Dex had learned to welcome.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

_X_

The boys spent the day at the mall looking for Christmas gifts. Derek didn’t really celebrate Christmas but he insisted on getting gifts for Dex’s family anyway. “To make them like me,” he joked with a wink, them both knowing it wouldn’t be that easy.

They held hands. They hadn’t done that in a few days. Dex missed it.

He let Derek drag him into store after store, stationary and electronics and chocolate. He watched Derek buy all of these and more, and Dex bought a few things himself. Some cards he kept hidden so Derek couldn’t peek. A small box of chocolates to share with his family during the night’s movie because it’s okay to treat yourself sometimes. Miscellaneous gifty bobbles.

“I need to stop at the hardware store after this,” Dex said as they left another store he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of.

“Let me guess. Making one of those carved fish plaques but with a lobster for your uncle.”

Dex barked out a laugh. “Yes. Of course that’s my plan. I’ll paint it with lobster blood to make it look more authentic.”

Derek crinkled his nose and holy fuck that was cute. “Gross, man.”

They left the mall and went to the hardware store. Dex insisted Derek wait in the car for the sake of his own safety and that of everyone in the vicinity.

Dex wrapped the chunks of wood and other supplies into the truckbed tarp before Derek could sneak a peek.

When they got home, Dex basically shoved Derek onto the couch next to Terry. “Keep him entertained. I’m gonna work in the shop and if he got anywhere near there he’d die.”

“Can do. Don’t lose any fingers.”

“Not like they work anyway,” he joked, half genuine humor half self-deprecation.

Terry, used to the way he joked about his issues, fired back a chirp without hesitation. “They work enough to flip me off, I’m sure.”

Dex flipped her the bird with both hands. “Yup. It’s a good thing we checked or else I may have forgotten.”

“Jackass!” she shouted as he walked away.

“Assjack!”

Dex should have felt bad for abandoning Derek with Terry but he didn’t. He needed the time and space to work on Derek’s Christmas gift. Plus he wasn’t kidding when he said Derek would probably manage to kill himself in the garage workshop.

The garage was Dex’s favorite part of the house. It wasn’t much, just a couple of tables and secondhand tools, but it was enough for him to practice carpentry when he wasn’t learning from his Aunt Carla during high school. He used the space often when home, either crafting things or repairing furniture.

Which reminded him, the stair railing needed to be tightened. He could do that later in the night.

For now, he needed to move everything from his truck to the garage and get started.

Thirty minutes in, he got a text from Terry. “Got bored, stole your car, going grocery shopping. Pie?”

“You better be driving because I don’t trust Derek with my truck. And fine, pie.”

Another thirty minutes later, Terry sent him a picture of canned peaches in his hands.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Terry. Bitty will kill me.”

He sent Bitty a screenshot of the horror, to which he replied with screaming emojis. Then a recipe he insisted Dex try out immediately. Dex forwarded Terry the recipe to add to her grocery list.

Knowing Terry just got paid by her job and had a bit of spare disposable income, the kitchen would probably become like the Haus during finals with the amount of pie ingredients she purchased.

_X_

Dex was right. So much pie. Almost too much pie.

Ha. As if.

Never too much pie.

_X_

They ate dinner with Sharon and Uncle Joe and Terry, the usual contenders. Dex wondered if his aunt realized how often her oldest daughter wasn’t at their house for dinner. Maybe it was easier since all the twins ate was chicken tenders and soup.

They shared the box of chocolates while rewatching Brother Bear. Dex gave his mom the white chocolate truffle he chose specially for her before that glutton Terry could get her grubby hands on the box. Three slices of pie and she still wasn’t satisfied. Derek managed some genuine conversation with Dex’s family and Sharon only said “Bless your heart” once. Dex was glad he never picked that line up from her.

Uncle Joe drove Terry home. Sharon went to bed early. Derek washed the dishes while Dex tidied up the kitchen. It was a nice routine they were settling into.

Derek became a part of Dex’s home routine so easily. Maybe it should’ve felt bitter, given their past, but it didn’t. It was like Dex’s pies; a little crispy around the edges sometimes but still deliciously sweet.

They went to their room and finally had to face the question that had been following Dex around like an excited puppy all day: Were they going to share the bed?

Who was he kidding? Of course they were going to share the bed. He barely needed to consider it before making the decision.

Dex wanted a lot of things with Derek. He wanted handholding and cuddling and romance. He wanted to trust Derek with his heart. He wanted this.

Was he ready?

Nobody ever really is.

So might as well go for it. Take the shot. Worst case scenario, he missed the puck, but even then it didn’t have to be the final game if he didn’t want it to be. There was always the opportunity for more.

Dex climbed into the bed, taking the wall side so Derek could easily climb out at night if he needed to. “Get in, loser, we’re going sleeping.”

Derek exploded with laughter. He made his way to the bed slowly, delayed by the laughing making him curl in on himself. “Why are you like this?”

“Because your laughter is pretty and romance is gross.”

To prove how gross romance was, Derek slid under the covers and grabbed Dex’s hands. He held them up to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss on them. “Grossed out yet?” he asked, smirk pressed against the flesh of Dex’s knuckles.

“Not yet.”

Derek pulled Dex’s hands further up and pressed another kiss to the inside of Dex’s wrist. “What about now?”

“Nope,” Dex breathed out. What was air?

At first he thought he was just breathless. It made sense; Derek had that effect on people. But no, Dex was breathless. He couldn’t breathe.

He shot backwards as far as he could, knocking into the wall and jerking his hands away from Derek. He wheezed and his heart thumped in his chest but it was in his head too and he felt the thump thump thump thump thump thump th

“Dex!”

What the fuck, anxiety?

Deep breaths. Settle down. Think about pie. That’s it; recite a pie recipe. Simple, no pressure. Start with the dough for the crust.

Dex worked his way through the first recipe Bitty taught him, a simple apple pie recipe Bitty burned into his brain, mostly reciting it in his head but possibly mumbling words aloud along the way.

“I need to bake a pie,” Dex mumbled when he finished the recitation. He opened his eyes and sat up. The room was dark and quiet.

Derek sat up beside him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just got overwhelmed.”

Anxiety was such an asshole. It’s one thing if he gets anxious over bad stuff; at least that made some sense. It made no sense and was a pain in the ass when his anxiety kicked in over good stuff. Dex doubted this would be the only time his anxiety would get in the way of his relationship with Derek.

“Did I do something wrong?” Derek’s voice was so small, so scared.

Dex reached out blindly in the dark for one of Derek’s hands. Once he grabbed it, he pressed a kiss to the knuckles then flipped it and pressed a second kiss to the wrist. “No, no complaints here. You need to move so I can get out, though.”

“Why?”

“I need to make an apple pie.”

“Do we even have the stuff for that?”

Dex shrugged, invisible in the dark. “I’m good at making things work. I can improvise. But also yes, Terry picked up everything under the sun. If it can be put into a pie, we have it.”

“You should sleep.”

“Pie first. I’ll try not to wake you up when I come in.”

_X_

It was a good pie. A little burnt around the edges from when Dex dozed off, but still good.

_X_

Far too late to be reasonable, Dex slipped back into his room, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake Derek, who snored peacefully on the wall side of the bed.

Dex pulled back the covers and scooted in. There shouldn’t have been enough space for the both of them to fit, but somehow there was. If Dex wiggled his way under Derek’s arm and kinda curved himself on top of Derek’s chest, it could even be comfortable.

He didn’t, though. That would be too much. So he curled in on himself on the edge of the bed and tried not to touch.

_X_

Dex woke up in Derek’s arms anyway, warm and comfortable pressed against his chest. One of Derek’s arms was under Dex’s head, the other slung over his waist. Dex was still curled at the edge of the bed, so Nursey must have scooted closer and rearranged them in the night.

It should have felt like too much. 

It didn’t.


	18. Rewriting The Story: Part 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gift exchange.

For Christmas, Dex made Derek a box.

After the fact, Dex felt a bit silly. Derek already had a perfectly functional box; he didn’t need a new one.

But the idea came to Dex and he couldn’t shake it so he did it.

He made Derek something stupid and it was time to go to his aunt’s house for the gift exchange and he was panicking because what kind of idiot makes their ex (maybe not anymore ex) a box as a gift?

Dex. Dex was the idiot. And Dex The Idiot was freaking out.

Dex’s family gathered at Aunt Susan’s house for all the holidays because she had a dining room and a big living room and a heating system that didn’t randomly crash in the middle of the night (thankfully Dex had only needed to get up in the middle of the night once so far to fix the heating unit at his house). Aunt Susan and her husband Tom were on the small couch with the twins in their laps. Uncle Joe and Uncle Thomas, the lobster boat uncle that everyone in the room (but Derek) had worked with or would work with at one point in their life, shared the large couch with Sharon. Terry, Derek and Dex brought chairs in from the dining room.

Why was he so anxious? He wasn’t even giving Derek his real gift till they were alone that night. This one was just a small gag gift like everyone else’s.

The whole lot got little palm-sized carved animals. Terry got a duck. Uncle Thomas got a lobster and Sharon got a seal. A rabbit and a corgi and a llama.

Derek got a sting ray for that time they went to the aquarium, though Dex didn’t explain that when he handed over the trinket. He already felt enough pity from the eyes of his family members without giving them more fuel.

Things between him and Derek were okay, he promised them, but they were wary. He didn’t blame them. He just wished they’d stop looking at him that way.

Derek’s whole face lit up when Dex pressed the little carved figure into his hands.

Things were, fine. Really. Great, even.

Dex returned Derek’s smile then turned away for fear of looking too lovesick.

_X_

“Don’t be mad.”

Dex closed the door behind him and looked at Derek sitting nervously on Dex’s bed, hands hidden behind his back.

That wasn’t ominous at all.

“You know, that’s one of the worst ways to start a conversation with someone with anxiety,” Dex said, approaching the bed to stand in front of Derek, heart starting to race.

“I got you another gift, that’s all!” Derek rushed to say, the words spilling out of him like ink flowing from a broken pen. “It’s nothing bad. But I know how you feel about me getting you stuff.”

Dex sighed in relief and his anxiety deflated. “If that’s all, then I should go get your gift. It’s still in the garage.”

“You have a gift for me?”

“Why do you sound so surprised? I mean, you have a gift for me, why shouldn’t I have a gift for you?”

“Because I…”

“Because you?”

“Because I think we should do the dating thing because I’m gay for you?” Derek asked more than said, referencing a moment from many years before.

Dex couldn’t breathe. Was it the anxiety or the general impact of Derek Nurse? Dex tried to focus on his breathing and took a deep breath. Not anxiety. Good. This was a normal freaking out.

He knew this was coming, but Dex hadn’t expected it to be now. He wasn’t ready. Though, really, would he ever be? Sometimes you just need to go for it, whether you feel ready or not.

Dex put his hands on his hips in a defiant stance and fixed Derek with a smirk. “We’re NCAA hockey players, what kind of dates are you expecting us to go on? Ice cream after practice?”

Nursey returned Dex’s grin from his seat on the bed. “I was thinking candle lit dinner and a movie.”

“Okay,” Dex said, removing his hands from his hips and placing them on either side of Derek’s face. His cheeks were warm under Dex’s sweaty palms. “I can do that.”

Dex squished Derek’s cheeks till his pretty face was turned into a wrinkly smush.

Derek removed a hand from behind his back and swatted at Dex’s hands, laughing all the while. “Quit it! You’re ruining out big moment!”

“I’m sure there will be plenty more moments, Derek.”

“A lifetime will never be enough time to cherish you. I live to watch you melt and I will die to be your wick, a final opportunity for you to shine bright.”

“I already told you, we should write a happier story.” Dex took a step away, watching as Derek’s smile slipped just slightly, uncertain. “I’m going to get your gift. Don’t break anything while I’m gone.”

“No promises.”

Dex made his way out to the garage. It was cold in there without any heating and Dex was a fool for traveling in there without a coat, but he was only there for a moment. The carefully wrapped package was cold to the touch but not painfully so. He tucked it under his arm and went back into the warm house.

It was a good thing that Derek hadn’t promised not to break anything, because when Dex returned to their room there was a broken mug on the floor. Previously sitting on Dex’s desk full of pens, now it was shattered on the ground.

Dex glanced back and forth between the broken mug and a sheepish Derek Nurse.

“I needed to write something down?”

“You couldn’t do that without breaking my mug?” Dex put the gift on the ground and kneeled to pick up the broken porcelain. At least it was a cheap dollar store mug and not one from his mom’s collection, then she’d have even more reason to dislike him. This could easily be replaced.

A shadow appeared over Dex and a moment later Derek knelt down to help pick up the shards. “I’ll get you a new mug. Something more fun than plain white. Maybe one with little hammers.”

A short laugh bubbled out of Dex. “Where are you planning on finding that?”

Derek shrugged. “Internet?”

They scooped the broken mug into the trash by Dex’s desk, then Dex watched as Derek sat back down on the bed. Dex picked the gift back up and sunk into the desk chair, placing it in his lap. It felt heavier than it should have.

The hockey themed wrapping paper seemed like a good idea when he got it, but now it seemed silly. The base was delightfully close to Samwell red and it was adorned with little hockey sticks and pucks. Dex planned to use it for Bitty and Chowder’s gifts, too.

“Trade?” Dex asked, holding the parcel out to Derek before he succumbed to the urge of throwing it out the window and disappearing under his bed forever in embarrassment. This was a terrible idea but if Derek took the box then Dex couldn’t back out.

Derek nodded and pulled something out from behind his back.

They exchanged gifts, hands brushing.

“There’s nothing inside,” Dex warned as Derek took hold of the hockey-decorated box. “It’ll make sense when you unwrap it.”

Derek nodded. “Okay. Same time?”

Dex took a moment to study the present in his hands. The wrapping wasn’t nearly as well done as Dex’s, revealing the sad truth that Derek wasn’t accustomed to wrapping gifts. It was the size of a small shoe box and its contents shook when it changed hands. The wrapping paper was gold and shiny and crumpled. Derek wasn’t good with his hands.

“Same time.”

He forced himself to keep his eyes on the gift in his lap and away from Derek’s face. If he didn’t focus, his mind would wander to whether or not Derek liked his gift and there was no point in speculating and getting anxious when he’d know soon anyway. He just needed to keep his eyes down and his shaky hands on the box in his lap.

Dex carefully peeled back a tab of tape then turned the gift to peel back another.

A loud rip of paper came from the bed. Dex chuckled; of course Derek was an impatient gift-opener.

They used to do this as kids. Derek’s family didn’t celebrate Christmas, but Dex’s did, so they exchanged gifts every year under the covers of a blanket fort over Dex’s bed. D never listened when Willie told him to be careful with the wrapping paper so he always got paper cuts.

Dex let go of the box in his lap and turned to his desk, opening a drawer and pulling out a box of band-aids. He put it on the edge of the desk near Derek before continuing opening his gift.

When Derek gasped, Dex forced himself not to look. Focus on what’s in your hands, he told himself. He peeled away the rest of the tape and folded back the wrapping paper to reveal a plain cardboard box. Okay, so there was another layer. He took a deep breath and braced himself for whatever was inside.

The box lid, once removed, revealed a notebook.

Dex reached in and pulled it out, revealing a second underneath it. He took that one out and placed it on the desk beside the first, then moved the empty box and wrapping out of the way.

The first notebook seemed relatively new, the red cover hardly scuffed or stained.

The second notebook was noticeably older, the cover, once blue, held a grayish hue from years of age. It seemed familiar, though Dex couldn’t be certain, it was just a notebook.

It wasn’t just a notebook, though. Dex opened it to a crisp yellowed page and immediately recognized D’s messy juvenile scrawl. He flipped through the notebook gently, careful not to tear any of the pages. Some poems he recognized, some he didn’t.

He put it aside and picked up the other notebook.

The handwriting in this notebook was less familiar; Dex didn’t often see Derek’s tidy swooping handwriting, distinctly lovely. Again, some poems he recognized, some he didn’t.

The only common thread throughout all the poems spanning both notebooks was that Derek wrote them for and about Dex.

“I love them,” Dex whispered, placing the new notebook gently on top of the old in a stack. He lifted his head to look at Derek properly and Dex’s breath caught in his throat.

Derek sat on Dex’s bed with the hand-carved box in his lap and tear tracks staining his cheeks.

“You made this?” Derek asked, already knowing the obvious answer.

“Yeah, it’s for your photos.”

“This is the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever gotten,” Derek choked through the tears.

The box took hours to make. Dex found time early in the morning and while Derek showered and when he could convince Terry to keep Derek company. It was nine inches by twelve inches with a height of six inches, approximately shoebox size, but it was hand-made from a sturdy deep brown wood. Carved into the lid were vines and into the sides were waves. On the front he carved a single candle. Dex considered it his best work.

“I’m glad you like it.”

Dex tentatively reached out his left hand. It brushed against Derek’s left cheek, smearing the tears. There wasn’t much space between them, enough to reach through, enough to lean in close. Dex leaned in, pressing closer till his face and Derek’s were only inches apart. With his left hand caressing Derek’s left cheek, Dex pressed a gentle kiss to Derek’s right cheek.

He heard Derek’s sharp intake of breath in his ear.

“Merry Christmas, Derek,” Dex said as he pulled away with a smile. His face burned, undoubtedly a garish red.

Derek’s cheeks had their own reddish tint. “Merry Christmas, Will.”

They put the gifts on the desk, out of the way and mostly safe, and got ready for bed. It was an amazing way to end the night, with such tenderness.

Except the night wasn’t over yet, because they still needed to arrange themselves into Dex’s bed for some sleep.

Derek climbed in first, taking the wall side. He laid down flat and occupied more than half of the bed’s surface.

“We can’t both fit laying flat on our backs,” Dex pointed out from where he stood beside the bed. “I’ll fall off the edge.”

Derek grinned up at Dex and patted the empty space beside him. “The way we woke up was pretty comfy.”

Dex blushed thinking of how he woke up that morning, sprawled cozily across Derek’s chest under the covers. He wouldn’t mind waking up like that again. “Yeah, okay. Pull the covers back.”

And as a sign of how much he cherished Derek, Dex used his full weight to flop onto Derek’s chest.

“Asshole,” Derek wheezed, trying to wiggle his way out from under Dex.

“I sure am.” Dex rearranged himself to be lying half on the bed, half on the wiggly man beneath him. “Stop wiggling and go to bed.”

Derek stuck a tongue out at Dex.

If Derek wanted to be ridiculous then fine, Dex wasn’t above fighting dirty.

Dex kissed Derek’s forehead and Derek finally went still. “Goodnight, Derek.”

He shivered when Derek’s lips grazed Dex’s temple. “Goodnight, Will.”


	19. Rewriting The Story: Part 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Communication is key. Also, telling the family.

For once, Dex slept in. Usually eight was the latest he could sleep, but snuggling with Derek knocked out his internal clock and by the time Sharon called them downstairs for lunch it was already noon. They hadn’t stayed up late so Dex didn’t understand how his body could sleep that long, but Dex wasn’t complaining. He was well-rested and cozy in bed with his boyfriend.

It felt weird to think of Derek that way. For so long, Derek was a fear. The memory of him was a boogie man that poisoned any potential relationship Dex could have with others, a creep around the corner watching for any little mistake.

Now, Derek was comfort again. Sudsy hands washing dishes in the kitchen. A soothing voice reaching through an anxious haze. Fragments of poems recited like the love letters they were. A lot had changed, and Dex wasn’t quite sure how.

“Hey, are you awake?” Dex asked, reaching a hand up to touch Derek’s face, landing in a drool trail on his chin. Gross.

“No.”

“Well then wake up, I have a question for you.”

Derek sighed but sat up, making Dex sit up with him. “What’s up?”

“Why’d you stop ignoring me?” He was referring to months ago, the end of last school year when Derek suddenly decided that Dex was worth his time again. When Derek claimed he wanted to know Will and that he wanted Will to know him.

“I missed counting your freckles,” Derek mumbled into Dex’s shoulder.

“It can’t be that simple. Why not just find someone else with freckles?”

“It had to be you.” He nuzzled his face into Dex’s neck, sending a shiver down Dex’s spine. It tickled. “It always had to be you.”

The answer made no sense, but also it did, in the same way that Dex’s lingering affection for D didn’t make sense. After the nasty way they ended things, a part of Dex still held on to D. As much as he feared D popping up around every corner, he also wished for it. D knew him in a way that nobody else did and Dex continued to yearn for that.

“Why did you decide to give us a second chance?”

Dex took a moment to think through a reply. There wasn’t really a single answer as to why Dex changed his mind about letting Derek back into his life, but it boiled down to this. “I realized that, as adults, we can basically do anything we want. If we care enough, we can stay together. And we finally learned how to talk about our problems.”

“Look at us being proper adults!”

“Boys! Hurry up or I’m feeding your lunch to Terry!” Sharon yelled from the base of the stairs.

Dex planted a quick kiss on Derek’s cheek then rolled off the bed. “Proper adults that are about to be lunchless.” He tugged a sweater on over his thin tee shirt and headed to the door. He paused just as he reached it and turned to face Derek. “Are we gonna tell them?”

“About us?” Dex nodded. “If you’re okay with that.”

Dex nodded again, this time more certain. “Yeah, okay.” As an afterthought, he added, “Can I tell Bitty? He’s one of my best friends and I want him to know.”

“Sweetheart, if it were up to me, I’d yell it from the rooftops for all to hear.”

“That’d be pretty rude to do but go for it. Let me tell my mom, first, though. She’d be so pissed if she wasn’t first to know.”

He told her during breakfast. After brushing their teeth, the boys went downstairs to join Sharon and Terry, who were already mostly done with lunch.Two plates sat on the kitchen table, each with an omelette, and Dex knew without having to ask that they both had american cheese. Derek would have to suffer. They took their plates to the living room and joined Terry on the couch, Derek on the end and Dex in the middle between them.

Best to rip off the bandaid than continue having anxiety about it. “Derek and I are dating,” Dex blurted into the quiet of the room, voice booming over the television playing in the background.

“That’s gay.”

“Shut up miss lesbian.” Dex stuck up the middle finger of the hand not holding a plate at Terry, which she promptly returned. “We’re too busy being gay to deal with your bull.”

Sharon sighed loudly then slurped her mug of tea. His poor mom, stuck with these little shits. It almost made Dex wish he were less of a butthead. He wasn’t hurting anyone, though, and his mom’s sighs were as full of fondness as they were frustration, so he made no effort to change his behavior.

“I’m happy for you boys. Now eat your food.”

Dex doubted she was sincere but he appreciated the kind lie.

_X_

“That went surprisingly well.”

Derek and Dex were up in Dex’s room after lunch, taking a short rest before going on a run. Dex needed to work harder than everyone else to stay in shape, and he wasn’t going to let snow stop him from getting a workout in. He couldn’t skate and he didn’t have access to a gym, but he could run and clear space in the living room for push-ups. He couldn’t do much, but he was going to do everything he could.

“My mom trusts me,” Dex said, digging through his dresser for some athletic clothes. They might be a bit tight but they should fit. “She may not like it but she won’t give us any shit. Terry’s gonna be a menace, though. Not that it’s a change from usual. Are you coming with me on my run?”

He looked at Derek, who was laying on his bed on the bed’s rumpled blankets. “Nah, I want to get some writing done. Have fun.”

Dex swapped out clothes and tied on his sneakers. “Okay, try not to break anything this time.” He kissed Derek’s cheek, let Derek kiss his, then went off.

Sharon was in the kitchen and Terry in the living room when Dex got downstairs. “I’m going on a run. Anyone need anything?”

“Pie!”

“No. Mom, you need anything?”

“No thanks, honey.” Sharon popped out of the kitchen to give Dex a quick kiss on the lower part of his cheek, the highest she could reach on her tiptoes. “Be careful. Come back if it gets too cold.”

“Okay. Bye, love you.”

“I love you too, Willie.”

“I tolerate you,” Terry chipped in from the couch.

“No pie for you then,” Dex said as he walked out the door into the bitter cold.

He could barely hear her yell “Wait, no!” before he closed the door behind him. He chuckled. He wouldn’t really stop baking her pie, he loved to do it, but she occasionally deserved to squirm.

The weather, despite being cold, was nice. The sun peeked through a spattering of clouds and kept the snow on the ground from turning to ice. Rural Maine in the middle of winter was a pretty place. He wished Derek hadn’t declined Dex’s offer; he would have liked the sights. Dex resolved to drag Derek out at some point during vacation to appreciate the poetic view.

The run was peaceful.

“Hey, Poindexter!”

Until it wasn’t.

Dex was running along a strip of the main road when a rumbling old truck, not nearly as well kept as Dex’s, rolled up beside him. An unfortunately familiar face stuck out the window and Dex’s gut reaction was to punch.

Thankfully, Dex’s gut reaction wasn’t as strong as his desire to stay out of jail for assault and he held back. “Hello, Chester.”

Chester’s toothy grin spelt nothing but trouble. “Running around looking for that grade school boyfriend of yours again? Derek Nurse, right? Isn’t it time you give that up?”

A while ago that would have been a low blow. It would have ached in the way of an old wound, one that didn’t heal quite right. Dex would have panicked and ran away, possibly cried when he got home because the ache never quite went away.

Now, Dex smirked with the knowledge that Chester was about to get dragged. “Oh, you mean my hot as fuck NCAA athlete boyfriend that is waiting for me at home right now? I’m running around desperately searching for that Derek Nurse?” Chester’s jaw dropped and Dex didn’t bother to hide his laughter. He looked down at his wrist, acting as if there was a watch even though there obviously wasn’t. “Well, shouldn’t keep him waiting. If you see us around town, don’t be afraid to say hi!”

Dex waved and ran off, not for a moment feeling like he was running away. He won this battle. It was something he could laugh at with Derek later.

And he did. After he got home and showered and changed into something that didn’t smell like the hockey team locker room after practice, he threw himself onto his bed and addressed Derek, who was sitting at Dex’s desk scribbling away at a notebook.

“Remember Chester?”

Derek’s writing stilled and he turned to Dex, confusion spreading across his face. “The guy that tried to break a hockey stick over his knee and sprained his wrist instead?”

“Yeah, that guy. I ran into him on my run. He joked that I was running around looking for my lost childhood love and you should have seen his face when I said you were waiting for me at home.”

“So basically if we see him we should be a spectacle?” Derek’s grin, wide and devious, probably matched Dex’s own.

“Exactly.”

_X_

They ran into him two days later at the grocery store when Sharon sent them shopping for the house. Derek and Dex were traveling one way up the pasta aisle, Chester the other way, and once Chester noticed them he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Hey Chester!” Derek raised a hand in an exaggeratedly enthusiastic wave. When he said spectacle, he meant it. “Remember me?”

“Uh, Derek, right? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I usually go home to New York and spend the holidays with my moms, but they’re away for work so my incredibly sweet boyfriend invited me home for break.” Derek wrapped an arm around Dex’s waist and pulled him close enough to press a soft kiss into his hair. “Anyway, we really should go. Monday’s are game nights and we’re already running late. Bye, Chester!”

Dex could barely contain his laughter until they turned out of the aisle.

“Mondays are game nights?”

Derek shrugged. “Maybe we should make it a thing.”

They dug up some old board games and card decks when they got home, hidden in various dressers and closets, and laid them out on the living room floor after dinner. Sharon was incredibly perceptive when it came to Clue, but Terry swept in all the card games. They ban Monopoly after ten minutes.

They made it a thing


	20. Rewriting The Story: Part 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter before the epilogue!

“Break is ending soon. Should we tell the team? Derek asked, a heavy but welcome weight on Dex’s chest as they cuddled in his bed. Derek carded his fingers through Dex’s hair and he melted into the motion.

“If you want, sure. I’m comfortable with that.”

“Then, am I telling Chow or are you?” 

“We can just FaceTime him, make it easy.”

“Have you told Bitty yet?”

“Nah, it hasn’t really come up. I’m sure it will sooner or later.” Dex flailed an arm around, trying to find Derek’s phone on the desk next to the bed. His hand found it and he held it over Derek’s shoulder, unlocking it and finding Chowder’s contact. “I can’t believe your passcode is still my birthday.”

“I bet yours is still our first date.”

“Nope.” It used to be, when he was a kid with his first phone. After Derek left, though, he changed it to something random. Only recently did he change it to something meaningful again. “Guess again.”

“Our first kiss?”

“No.”

“The day we got back together.”

“Still no.”

Derek nuzzled his face into Dex’s neck, his hair tickling Dex. “Can I have a hint?”

“Fine,” Dex sighed, trying to sound annoyed but failing epically. He was far too fond of Derek to seem anything else. “It’s a date but not of an event.”

After a few more flimsy guesses from his boyfriend, Dex finally decided to take pity.

“Let me up,” Dex said, pushing Derek off his chest towards the wall. With Derek off him and out of the way, Dex got off the bed and tood in front of his desk. He bent down, opened the bottom desk, and pulled out a notebook. He read from the first page. “So sweet, the sand, an illusion of cotton candy and fairy floss. A gentle itch, a soft ache. The ocean shares a kindness that should drown any fire yet you burn brighter, melting sand into smooth glass and ache into friendship. You turn illusion into reality.” He put down the notebook down on the desk and stared at it, a bit afraid of looking at Derek, of the expression he might wear. “Written 1-3-06.”

He listened, instead of watched, while Derek grabbed Dex’s phone from the desk and input the code 1306. Dex knew what would happen; it would unlock to reveal a picture of them and Chowder as the background.

“That’s the first poem I ever wrote down for you,” Derek said, and Dex forced himself to look. Derek’s voice was thick, teary. Dex wasn’t trying to hide his vulnerability anymore; he needed to face it head-on.

“Yeah,” Dex said, more of a breathy laugh than a word. “I thought it was appropriate, restarting our happy story from the beginning.”

_X_

Dex and Derek were the first to arrive back at school, at Dex’s insistence. Only a single day ahead of everyone else this time, just enough time for them to move their stuff back in and make some minor changes to their room arrangement. Nothing major, just Derek moving his photos to his new box and Dex putting the poetry notebooks in the safety of his desks bottom right drawer. He replaced his old pen mug with the new hammer patterned mug that Derek found him on the internet.

The changes were minor, but they made everything warmer. A little bit of each other in their personal zones.

Not that those zones weren’t shared now. Derek lazed on Dex’s bed the next morning while Dex helped Bitty with food duty. That morning, Dex had extracted himself from Derek’s arms, completed his morning routine, and kissed Derek on the forehead before heading down to the kitchen.

They picked up some groceries on their way back, just enough to tide them over for a day, so Dex started with a pie. He left things out for Bitty who, as expected, arrived fifteen minutes later than he had originally said he would.

“Hi, Dex! How was your break?” Bitty put down his bags and wrapped Dex in a tight hug.

“Hi, Bitty. It was good. I, uh, actually have a boyfriend now.”

Bitty pulled back abruptly, keeping a tight grip on Dex’s shoulders. “Please tell me it’s who I think it is.”

Dex smiled, fond and happy and beet red. “Yeah, it is.”

Bitty pulled Dex into another hug, this one tighter than the last. Dex could barely breathe but even suffocation couldn’t wipe away his smile. “I’m so happy for you!” He pulled away again, this time letting go completely and turning immediately away from Dex. “I know I’m already going to make pie, but this calls for a pie.”

They also baked some cookies and brownies for variety. With the number of people expected to come through, there was no doubt that they wouldn’t go to waste.

Derek came downstairs a few times to greet people and steal some food, kissing Dex’s forehead or temple or knuckles every time he passed him. If he kept up that behavior, Dex doubted they’d have to make an actual announcement or verbally tell anybody. Not that he minded.

During one such moment, when Derek visited the kitchen to grab a cold Gatorade from the fridge and ducked in to press a kiss low to Dex’s jaw, a wolf whistle came from the kitchen doorway.

Standing there, in all her badass glory, was Lardo. Dex had forgotten that she and some of the other graduates were coming to visit.

“Are you too busy macking in the kitchen or are you two losers going to come hug me?”

Dex chuckled, embarrassingly red-faced, and complied with her request. He let Derek hug her first, since they were closer friends, then he took his turn, hunching over to meet her height.

“I’m glad you worked things out,” she whispered into his ear.

“Me, too,” Dex replied, beaming, his heart full of love for his family and boyfriend and friends. “Being with him is easy, when we let it be.”

He took a step back, and Derek appeared next to him, wrapping an arm around his waist and pressing into his side.

“You know they’re going to target you for the sin bin now, right?” Lardo said, a smirk on her face.

“Sure, if they don’t mind me not fixing things for them anymore.” The Haus would fall apart without Dex’s hard work and everyone knew it. He wasn’t above using that fact to his advantage.

“Guys!!”

Dex straightened up to look over Lardos shoulder at his best friend, in all his teal Sharks merchandise glory, standing in the living room. Bags were piled at his feet and his girlfriend, the amazing Caitlin Farmer laid on the couch nearby and waved.

Lardo stepped out of the way, aware of what was about to happen since it happened every year.

Frog pile incoming.

The boys nearly collapsed onto the kitchen floor in a pile of laughter, disruptive enough for Bitty to kick them out.

“You sure you don’t need my help?”

“Thank you Dex, but I’m sure I can manage on my own.” Bitty grabbed himself a hug from Chowder once the boys managed to untangle themselves from each other on the floor. “Now, go have fun.”

Chowder plated himself a slice of pie and followed Dex and Derek up to their room. The three of them sat in a circle on the floor, close enough for their knees to touch. Rays of sunlight shone down through the window and illuminated the pie like treasure among thieves.

“Wow, I can’t believe next year is our last year!” Chowder shouted before stuffing a bit bite of pie in his mouth.

Derek leaned back, using both arms to prop him up, and he looked every bit as nauseatingly beautiful as ever. “Yeah, but we have our whole lives ahead of us.”

And Dex knew, with his boyfriend and his best friend by his side, it was going to be easy. If he let it be, that is, and he planned to try his best to do so. His happiness, and the happiness of the people he loved, was worth the effort.


	21. Happily Ever After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue! Time skip of a few years.

Dex’s favorite attraction at any aquarium was the jellyfish tanks. It was soothing to watch the jellyfish float around, the tentacles flaring out around them and pushing out, a simple repetitive motion. This particular aquarium had several tanks featuring several types of jellyfish.

He stood in front of his favorite tank, a tube in the middle of a dark corner that fluctuated between different fluorescent colors of light. The jellyfish changed colors with the light, green then blue then purple.

Derek, who stood beside Dex and watched the jellyfish with him, also changed in the light. Neon pink flooded his face, slowly shifting to red, and Dex watched as it kept changing, a fond smile on his face. Derek should’ve looked silly but all Dex saw was happiness.

He reached into his pocket and touched the small velvet pouch to make sure it was still there. Today was the day, he just needed to think of the right time.

Chowder was there somewhere, hiding around a corner so he couldn’t be seen. He insisted on being there for the proposal and who was Dex to tell their best friend he couldn’t use his off day and his fancy NHL salary to fly down?

So it had to be today.

They only just arrived; this was the first exhibit. They had all day to find the perfect moment.

The jellyfish were beautiful, and they were Dex’s favorite, but it wasn’t the right time.

Neither was their adventure in the meerkat exhibit, which had a little tunnel underneath so you could pop your head in and look around. Derek, the goofball, tried to crawl into the tunnel but couldn’t fit and he nearly got stuck. Dex nearly collapsed from how hard he laughed, but he loved Derek enough to pull him out.

The seal feeding show wasn’t right, either, though it was fun to watch Derek’s face light up every time any of the seals did anything.

Then they arrived at the manta ray tank. The thing about the manta rays is that they were the only creatures in the aquarium that people were allowed to touch. They were kept in a large short tank with no lid, big enough for them to swim around and show enough for people to reach in and pet them. Pet two fingers along their back, front to back. Wait until they come near the top so as not to reach your whole arm in. Be respectful of the rays and be careful with the tank.

Derek followed all of the rules and somehow still managed to get drenched. Dex wasn’t really sure how; he looked away for just a moment to check the time on his phone, then he heard a loud splash of water, and when he looked up Derek was sopping wet.

“I got splashed,” he explained with a sheepish smile.

Dex sighed but couldn’t bring himself to be upset. “Only you. I’ll go get you some dry clothes from the gift shop. Wait for me in the bathroom.”

“Will do, babe!” Derek replied, already clomping towards the bathroom. His waterlogged shoes made a gross wet slap sound on the linoleum tile floor. Gross.

Once Derek disappeared into the bathroom, Chowder appeared next to Dex. “Wow, that was so weird!”

“Did you see what happened?” Dex asked, leading them towards the gift shop.

“He got splashed out of nowhere by the biggest one! It was crazy!! He seems to be okay though so that’s good!”

“Yeah, but that’s not very romantic.” His chances to find the perfect moment were slimming down to nearly nothing.

“If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, it’s not going to happen. Just do it!”

Dex grabbed a random shirt and sweatpants from the gift shop, checking for the right size first but not caring about the designs, and brought them up to the register. “He deserves the perfect moment, though, Chowder.”

Chowder rolled his eyes, a move he picked up from Dex in their college years. It was only fair, though, since Dex picked up Chowder’s affinity for the term “hella.” “He’ll be waiting forever, then.”

They walked over to the bathroom and Dex waved Chowder off, sending him to hide somewhere out of sight for when they came out.

Derek wasn’t in sight, when Dex entered the bathroom, but he could be heard humming from the bathroom’s single stall. His wet clothes were piled on the floor, peeking out from under the stall door.

“Derek, I have clothes for you,” Dex said, passing the dry clothes over the top of the stall. Once Derek took them, Dex leaned down to drag the wet clothes and bring them to the sink to wring out. “Give me the plastic bag when you’re done and we’ll put the wet clothes in it.”

“William, my savior,” Derek sung out, voice happy and sweet, the way it only got around Dex.

There would never be a perfect moment, but with Derek in his life, every moment was amazing. Even the hard moments when there was no way to make things be easy, especially the moments when Dex felt so in love he could feel it pouring into everything he did.

Any moment could be the perfect moment if they made it be, Dex thought idly as he twisted the water from Derek’s pants.

He turned at the sound of the stall door opening.

“The pants are tight but they fit. Shouldn’t you know my size by now, Poindexter?” Despite having left their hockey days behind, they continued to chirp each other with frequency. Some habits don’t change.

“Maybe I got them small on purpose, Nurse. You may not have a hockey butt anymore, definitely no Jack Zimmerman, but it’s a nice view.”

Derek wrapped his arms around Dex’s waist at the sink counter and pressed a sloppy kiss to Dex’s cheek. “Wow, babe, you’re so mean. I’m sorry being an author isn’t as physically demanding as competitive sports.” Another cheek kiss, this one more deliberate, less spitty. “Not that building computers is any better.”

He was right there; Dex had no room to judge since his job had him sitting at desks just as much as Derek’s did. They made a point of going to the gym together several times a week to stay in shape, but neither of them were as fit as they’d been in college. Not everyone went on to professional hockey like Jack, Chowder, and Whiskey did.

Dex dropped the damp pants in his hands onto the counter and turned in Derek’s arms. With Derek’s face so close, Dex could smell the nasty manta ray water on his skin. He crinkled his nose in disgust. “Gross, you smell awful.”

Derek’s smile was too wide to be innocent. “But you’ll kiss me anyway.”

“Like hell I will,” Dex said, trying to back away with nowhere to go, pressed up against the sink counter.

Derek moved in closer, impossibly so, leaving no space between them. He smelt gross and he was laughing and Dex wondered for the millionth time how a person could make him so happy. How he could make a person so happy. A fish put a damper on their date but instead of letting it ruin things they rolled with it because at least they were together.

Being together was always their happiest state of being.

“Marry me.”

Dex hadn’t meant to blurt it out right there in the aquarium bathroom, his boyfriend smelling ghastly and pinning him to the sink. He’d meant to say it at a time when they were both happily not fish-scented. But standing there, flush against each other, the sink counter digging into his back, Dex’s love for Derek swelled so much that it came pouring out.

They’d talked about it, but the surprise on Derek’s face made it seem like Dex’s proposal had come out of left field. “What?”

Dex wiggled his hand down into his pocket and removed the small velvet pouch. “Can you step back so I can do this properly?” When Derek stepped back, Dex took the ring out of the pouch and went down on one knee, dirty fishy bathroom floor be damned. “Derek Nurse, you beautiful mess, will you marry me?”

There never would be the perfect moment, so any moment spent not asking was wasted since he already knew this was the person he’d spend the rest of his life with. Dex was done wasting moments.

“I’m stupidly in love with you. Like, it’s bad. I want us to move out of our shitty apartment and get a house together and make you all the bookshelves you want for your endless book collections. I want a big bag yard where I can build a treehouse if we ever have kids. You’re a klutz and I want to spend the rest of my life trailing behind you cleaning up your messes. So, Derek, will you marry me?”

Derek, tears in his eyes, smiled down at Dex and gave a watery laugh. “Is that a proposal or a chirp?”

Dex chuckled and smiled back. “Both.”

Derek laughed again, though it cut off abruptly as Derek’s grin fell and eyes widened. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

Derek frantically patted his pockets and seemed even more frantic once he realized nothing was there.

“What’s wrong?” Dex asked, anxiety rising. He just proposed and Derek was freaking out, which wasn’t very reassuring. Dex tried to quell the anxiety; he and Derek had talked about marriage, Derek wasn’t freaking about this, he just happened to freak out right after Dex proposed.

Derek raised his gaze from his offensively empty pockets and at Dex, then past him. “My clothes!”

Dex stood and stepped out of the way so Derek could get to the sink counter. The pants, partially wrung out by Dex, were on the counter, but the shirt and jacket were still sitting in the sink in a sopping pile. Derek pulled out his jacket and reached into an inner pocket Dex hadn’t known was there. Out came a small black velvet box. The kind seen in all those romance movies when a man goes on one knee. The kind Dex nearly got but decided against because the velvet sachet was easier to carry around.

Derek leaned down to sniff it and pulled back immediately, face pinched. He turned to Dex with a half-smile, half-grimace. “Bad news: the ring I got you now smells like fish. Good news: obviously my answer is yes.”

Dex held both his hands out, the right hand palm up with the ring for Derek in it, the left hand facing down. Derek stared without moving. “This is the part where we exchange rings, Derek.”

“But yours is fishy.”

“I practically grew up on a lobster boat; I can handle it.” And it was true. Derek smelt gross from the aquarium water, yeah, but it wasn’t strong compared to being on a lobster fishing boat all day. Dex was being a butthead more than anything by calling Derek gross. “Now give me my ring so we can officially start spending the rest of our lives together.”

A bright smile burst across Derek’s face, ridiculously happy, and Dex guessed his expression matched.

They exchanged rings, Dex’s a bit damp on his skin. It fit perfectly.

Derek bent to kiss Dex’s ring-clad hand. “So, Mr Poinnurseter, shall we go continue our date?”

Dex groaned. “We are not mashing our names together, Derek. Just, no. No.” It sounded ridiculous. Not that hyphenating would be much better, since it would be too long. Nurse-Poindexter. Poindexter-Nurse. If they had kids, their names would never fit on a bubble-in sheet; Dex was lucky if just Poindexter would fit on one of those.

“This is cute, but how long are you planning to be in the bathroom?” a voice called from the direction of the door, startling both Dex and Derek. Derek nearly slipped in the puddle he made when picking up his jacket, and Dex had to steady him. Chowder stepped out from the little corner right inside the bathroom entrance.

“Shit,” Dex hissed. He’d totally forgotten about Chowder.

“You’re so lucky I followed you in and got the proposal on film. At least four people would have been so mad at me!”

“Sorry, Chowder,” Derek and Dex apologized in unison.

“Wait, you knew he was here?”

“You knew he was here?”

“You both think you’re smart but I’m the real mastermind.” Chowder strode forward and wrapped them in a tight hug, smushing the three of them together. “Aw, you guys! You’re finally getting married!”

“The universe made us for each other,” Derek said, letting Chowder pull away from the hug but keeping Dex pulled tight against him. “It was only a matter of time”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chowder: Now that that’s done, can I finally go see the sharks?

**Author's Note:**

> People have been asking what Dex's hand issues are diagnosed as, so I'm gonna answer that question here.  
I don't know!  
I have hand issues and, despite seeing a variety of doctors over the past year and a half, have yet to receive a diagnosis.  
Dex's hand issues are based on my own, and that aspect of this story is basically me projecting and making a character more relatable for myself. Since I don't have a diagnosis, I can't definitively give him one. For me personally, doctors have speculated lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and other things I can't recall.  
His list of symptoms shown in the story include: numbness, pain/aches, stiffness, and the occasional malfunction where his hands just don't do what he wants them to (Ex: randomly dropping a hockey stick because the hand randomly stopped holding onto it)


End file.
